The lazy hippo blog

MS Dhoni, I'm a fan!

2011-04-05T21:30:00.000-04:00

The 2nd of April, 2011 is a date I can never forget. Yes, it's been talked about a lot, analysed a lot, etc. but I needed this introspection.

Being an Indian I naturally grew up around cricket, grew up playing cricket with an exam pad and a paper ball while waiting for the ride back home, grew up looking forward to running into the field for a game of cricket in the evening, grew up watching Sachin Tendulkar score runs effortlessly game after game, grew up getting autographs of cricketers, grew up trying to watch as many matches live in a stadium as possible, grew up with many changes in different phases of my life but not my love for cricket.

Heck, my favourite birthday gift till date is a set of six rubber balls that a dear childhood friend of mine had given me.

I also grew up always hoping for an Indian win in every cricket tournament. This particular win of course was the big one. World cup is when the world pretty much stops playing cricket and watches - and follows, which is perhaps the main reason for the over-analysis. Criticism is an obvious side-effect. Everybody has an opinion about cricket, and if there is any strategy implemented by the team other than the one that the critic thought about, it is flawed. No two ways about it. Such is the pressure on the team, and in particular, the captain. A failure in any match will lead to a question about the strategy. Though asked in many different words and forms, it is always only one question: "What in the world were you thinking?"

MS Dhoni answered everything with that last six over long on. The look in his eyes following the ball all the way symbolised many things: Savouring the moment, ensuring it is really over without any premature celebrations, and the satisfaction of a job fantastically done. The world had started celebrating before he did, I did too - he was probably the last. He waited to ensure the ball landed before he started celebrating. It is the hallmark of a true champion - not rushing the ending, however obvious it may seem. My dad always says that champion material is all about having that extra bit. So true!

Out of form, many unnatural choices and ideas - they are all just fodder for critics. Now there were no more questions - just congratulations. To me, he defines "leading from the front" in a way that no one else has. OK, that's an overstatement - of course, many would have done so in the past, perhaps better - but none that I could relate to as much as this. Cricket is a sport that can communicate with about half the world, and I am from that half. Cricket can inspire. Dhoni, you have inspired me. I'm a fan. Hats off to your bold and firm decisions, your efforts in following them up, and your beliefs.

Cheers to the best Indian cricket team that I have ever seen, there was a sense of harmony in this unit which made me believe! Cheers to the folks who helped in the evolution of such a fantastic team!

And cheers to the best captain I have had the pleasure of watching!!

The coffee and poker semester that was

2010-01-02T13:28:00.006-05:00

Fall 2009 will be remembered for poker. OK that's not true, but at least mainly for poker. For most of us learnt it in June and played regularly on the internet, and at home with Syracuse buddies, albeit usually with play money. That the weather started getting cold and people were lazy to venture out also contributed. God alone knows how many assignments/projects got postponed cos of this.

"Coffee kudidu poker adidre hAng iratte?" ("How about coffee and a game of poker?") à la Yatish has become a regularly used household phrase, in seriousness and in sarcasm :-) And when there's work to be done, obviously Texas Hole'em poker sounds like a better idea ;-) And a game starts.

At first, the folks who knew that the game involves having two hole cards and five community cards were the leaders. Initially we thought straight was better than flush which was better than full house, or something like that. We also thought if one chap bets X, others call X, the first guy can bet again and again, until all check or one folds.

The next stage was when some of us started checking out details on the internet, and found out the various flaws in our understanding.

Then the "correct" form of Texas Hold'em for a few days. I also bought a few books on the subject. Followed, of course, by internet play. And, oh the joy of winning three consecutive rounds on Facebook's poker app and the 500,000 chips!

Then seeing how Omaha etc. hold up and the quick realization that one form of poker is complex enough to understand.

The next stage was - let's go to a casino, (naturally!). So, Turning Stone a couple of times, and blaming the losses on the fixed-limit form that we played, cos no-limit required much more seed money to have a good shot! :-)

Then, the experimental ways of playing. Trying to mix up plays, trying to predict each other's cards, etc., and explaining all kinds of theories when an attempt flopped. Watching WSOP videos, watching how the pros play, and trying them out. WSOP is on everybody's must-play-at-least-once list!

And of course, the inevitable "bad beat" tales started. "Man I had pocket kings, and he called an all-in with 3-5 off suit, and what do you know, the flop came 3-5-Q and he won with two pair. @^&#%(!#($"...LOL! Of course, probability distributions hide under the "it works well if you play infinitely many times" theory :-) The slow realization that pocket jacks suck. :-)

The latest has been finding out that having 2-7 is actually better than A-Q against someone else who has A-K pre-flop. After thinking about it for a while, it made sense, but the wonders of probability continue to stun me (If poker and/or probability do not interest you, this may not make sense - sorry!).

It was fitting that the new year was welcomed with a get-together, food, drink and ten people playing poker (in fact, we forgot about the countdown to midnight - to make up for having missed the EST new year, we thought we'd count down to the CST new year, we missed that as well, and then the MST new year, missed that too, and then the PST new year - but by then all of us were tired and sleepy, so we didn't wait till 3am).

BTW, why am I posting this now? Yeah, I have a lot of work to do!

From my frame of reference

2009-12-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

It's blowing snow outside (-12C/10F, feels like -22C/-7F) and I walk over, frozen, to Marshall street and get a cup of Starbucks coffee (at least I was frozen, many people were walking around without a cap). Thank goodness for Starbucks for being open during this vacation season, coffee is essential while preparing for my qualifiers.

I wonder how this turned out to be a season for exams. The other day, Saturday night, as I was waiting for the bus to go home, the bus stop was deserted. Obviously - the day after Christmas, Saturday night, cold, in a bus stop at school?? Then I see a guy walking to the bus stop, and he asked me if I had an exam in January. I couldn't help LOLing at the quick deduction! As we chatted, it turns out he is my friend's housemate and he has a qual as well, some other time in Jan.

Someday, after all this is done, someone please explain to me the point of this exam, but let's not turn this post into a qualifier cribbing, it's a pretty beaten topic of discussion among grad students.

Anyway, as I walked over to Marshall, I wondered if I could clearly outline why I chose to work on Artificial Intelligence. Partly because I have been often asked this, and the other part - an idle mind while walking in the cold. Here's the list of 2^3 possible areas, and only one that I can think of trying to work on. Why 2^3 - it's a combination of Natural/Artificial, Intelligence/Stupidity, On earth/outside earth - a total of 8 combinations.

1. Natural stupidity outside earth - Plenty, a moon rock would qualify

2. Natural stupidity on earth - Don't get me started!

3. Artificial stupidity outside earth - IMHO, only natural stupidity can make someone research in this area

4. Artificial stupidity on earth - Plenty, any typical idiot box qualifies

5. Natural intelligence outside earth - I really want to know and I think there most definitely is, but to send a signal itself takes many many years with no idea of whether we can get a signal back during our lifetimes, even if there is something out there that receives it and pings back

6. Natural intelligence on earth - Worth researching, but since it is already "established" that humans are an intelligent species, it might take some convincing to make people agree that this is really open to research, so funding might be an issue :-)

7. Artificial intelligence outside earth - To create it, there must be some (again, "established") natural intelligence out there, so refer to [5] above

8. Artificial intelligence on earth - Finally, the only one that's left - let's check it out!

OK so there it is. Anybody who asks me what motivated me, here's one line of thinking from my own frame of reference.

Oh well, back to set associative caches, before the effect of the coffee runs out.

2006: A significant leg of my journey from a zygote to worm-food

2006-12-29T02:27:00.001-05:00

Worm-food...It tickled me when i heard Joey (of Friends) say it...as it turns out, it's pretty well put across :-) So i'm a year further away from zygote-hood, and a year closer to becoming some bunch of worms' delicacy??

Anyways, I shall let that go, and shift focus...as it is not yet the time for that (and when it is, i won't even know)...it is now time to:

sum up 06, and come up with some colossal plans for the new year, most of which would be re-planned for 08
make resolutions and firmly resolve to break them to keep up with tradition
plan stuff and watch it go haywire
question myself about certain events in 07, try to answer, and find out how wrong i was at the same time next year, as i am finding out now

so...chalo...let me do the summing up...but wait a minute, there are still 2 days to go

LH says: Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow, cos u might not have to do it at all ;-) Although if you have to eventually do it, it'll be far tougher, so it's a gamble basically....hehehe

Hence, summing up 2006 has been postponed people!! Watch this space for future dates (i'm obviously talking to die-hard optimists here)

Finally, here comes the only non-sarcastic line of this post...
WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

After a long vacation.....

2006-11-22T02:48:00.000-05:00

The windows were beginning to get streaked with little drops of rain as Bangalore neared, in the early morning hours of that crisp day in October. It was a perfect complement to my mood and somehow poetically seemed to be a fitting end to my nomadic vacation. I was tired but happy to be back. I was home!

Aimless Biking

2006-05-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

It's real interesting... I've been doing it for quite some time now... Just take my bike and roam (actually loaf) slowly, re-al-ly slowly, on side roads in and around my locality... letting the bike and the roads lead you instead of picking any specific route!

This weekend I did nothing, absolutely nothing.. though the evening was good today.. Watching Schumi win the European GP was thrilling.. a spectacular race, esp a great last pit-stop by him, and he beat Alonso by a comfortable margin.. Being a die-hard Schumi fan, I loved the race!!

Once that was over, however, thoughts of the whole week ahead loomed large ahead of me. These 5 days are going to be especially tough.. and being home doing nothing on a Sunday evening makes these thoughts larger and stronger in your head. That's when the aimless biking comes in! It works like a charm.. at times when you have to brush away the cobwebs!

My ride time was about 40-45 min and the distance covered was about 9 km (Real jobless eh? Why do u think I'm posting on this blog now? .. LOL) I was picking small lanes, typically those in which vehicles of only the people who live there navigate. No shifting at all into 4th or 5th gears. I was letting females on little powerless two-wheelers overtake me (yeah yeah I'm an MCP.. hahaha)

As the day comes to an end, I plan to do some surfing.. abt 3 hrs to go before the ZZZs.. the Sunday evening/Monday morning blues are beginning to envelop me and they seem stronger than usual... It's usually not so bad...

Later...

Me!

2006-04-30T01:00:00.000-04:00

I once was chatting with my pal... and was ribbing him about how jobless he must be cos he posted so often on his blog... he simply said that he was afraid that "else my blog would become like yours!"

ouch!!

I definitely would like my blog to be a standard and used as a benchmark while comparing blogs. BUT NOT THIS WAY!!

So here mate... this one post and probably the next 2-3 too, to get out of blogger's block (is that the right term?), is motivated by that!
_____________

Anyways, since most blog posts are based on daily happenings in the author's life... here goes...

As usual I am at crossroads... don't know which road to take, and can't even take an educated guess! As most guesses and predictions till now have failed.... miserably... so I'm kind of scared to predict, cos then the probability of that not happening skyrockets! Heck, unpredictability is the way to go... for me, if I know something's going to happen, it'll take the kick out of it!

I am a fan of certain people I've met this far... it's a short elite list... it's based mainly on their basic outlooks and attitude.... they don't know that I am a fan of theirs!

I believe that no matter what you do or don't do, get or don't get, you are in the process of scripting a very unique and very special path that will eventually define you!

I believe that criticising and passing sarcastic comments (for kicks, of course) on anything and everything is great fun!

I'm glad I started reading Dilbert comic strips after I joined work... it's really amazing how much of it is true... I'm addicted to those strips!

I believe that being a jack of all trades is more fun than being the master of one... though ideally it would be good if I get to master one or more of those many trades!

I believe that planning for anything is pointless

I generally don't read blogs

I want to someday complete a marathon

I want to learn to fly a craft

I want to someday visit either the arctic or the antarctic (or both!)

I will never understand why people take snaps of beautiful scenic locations by including themselves too in the photograph. Wouldn't it be better if the snap just had the scenery and not used as a backdrop?

I want to pull off a skydive... without assistance

I don't believe chess is a game for nerds... it's a brilliant game! I believe that playing defensively in chess is pathetic... King's gambit is the way to go!

I don't understand how it is possible that so many people think F1 is just cars going round and round!

I bowled a cricket ball once at 100 kmh ... well I broke the 100 barrier ;-)

I believe that any bad mood can be cured by singing or playing some instrument or listening to some great music... on a fabulous speaker system of course!

I don't believe in contingency plans or backup options! It's always a poor second and usually a great compromise.

I do not worry about others' opinions of me! All good opinions are treasured and bad opinions are considered (valued if valid, of course) and discarded if it makes no difference to me. If I think what I did was right, it was right. I have nobody to answer to.
_____________

There, that's it... for individual incidents that led me to believe these beliefs... and want these wants... and do these do's... perhaps this is not the place... or even if it is... it is not the time :-)

My dream!

2006-02-21T00:36:00.000-05:00

I pick up this tag from my good buddy Jonas, who has given an 'optional exercise' to lazy hippo...LOL... But yeah, LH has decided to take a sneak peek at the world outside the waterhole he resides in and bless the world with another post!

Hmm.. so this is a topical tag it appears, and the 8 things I look for in my prospective life-partner/soulmate are to be listed. But before I do that, I must say this: Usually I'm not a big fan of poetry, but Jonas seems to have come up with a real neat one! If you haven't been redirected to this page from his blog.. go n take a look at it.. good stuff, man!

Perhaps the 8 things should be apart from stuff like she should be about 5'6", with almost shoulder length black hair, a doe-eyed beauty with an hourglass figure, having an amazing dress sense, and some other 'basics' which I shall not list cos of the wide-audience range ;-)

8. preferably not a software engineer, but not such a constraint, as long as my dinner table discussion topics won't be "The Life and Works of an Uninitialized Variable"... While the topic isn't bad, there's a time and a place for that ;-)

7. early riser, else we'd both be late to office

6. sports shoes loving chick, not a high-heels lover cos in my opinion they serve no purpose, it hurts the foot, tough to walk or run, and heck, she's already 5'6" remember? ;-)

5. who prefers a card with a cartoon and a PJ on it to a card with some flowers and a poem

4. who can handle sarcastic/black jokes, and not say, "Please, not during meals!" ... haha..just kidding, that's her choice, i'm a generous soul! ;-)

3. shouldn't be married to her cellphone...
On a date:
Me: Darling...
{Ring Ring}
Me: As I was saying...
{Ring Ring}

2. who isn't who she isn't

1. and, the last one remains a mystery, a wild-card!

and now, if any of you smart alecks out there think lazy hippo is expecting a peacock with the voice of a cuckoo, .....you are probably right, but GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

I shall now tag Rush who reads a lot, loves to write (and writes damn well too) and has a very active blog....

...and me, my muddy waterhole bathed in sunlight beckons!

Tip of the day

2006-01-09T23:43:00.000-05:00

If life throws a lemon at you, make lemonade.... but if it throws a jackfruit at you, duck!

....Provided of course, you dislike jackfruits as I do

Why this blog is named so

2005-07-24T02:37:00.000-04:00

Long overdue post? Well I suppose it's expected going by how this blog is titled!

Why such a name? I am a big fan of the hippopotamus. It really lives in style. One of the laziest I guess. And yet so powerful and territorial. Imagine a floating hippo on a warm afternoon... heaven! Plus, of course it's really skilled... can run pretty fast if it wants to. A half-ton animal running faster than us... What momentum!

Hence the name. Shall hope to post more often!

My first blog

2005-03-23T10:29:00.000-05:00

Hi!!
This is my first blog