Benefits of a Computer Science Education

The stereotypical geek/nerd/what-have-you (I paint with a very broad brushstroke here) is supposed to be helpless outside of his/her area of expertise. Well, today I am happy to present a counter-point and show you how problem-solving ideas in one area can be applied to another.

This evening as we came home the electricity was out (nothing unusual there). What was unusual was that the lights weren't working at all and the inverter—which is supposed to keep the lights burning even when the electricity is out—was emitting a continuous, piercing beep (more like a screech). What The Heck (You Know What I Mean (YKWIM))?!

An investigation followed. Switched off the mains supply? Check. Took out the mains connection from the back of the inverter? Check. Cartridge fuse ok? Well, it looked ok (i.e., the wire seemed intact, with no signs of blackening (i.e., burning) on the cartridge). I had to disconnect the battery from the inverter to stop the bloody racket (at this point I would have welcomed a frank exchange of views with the person who put in that racket-maker).

Now what? Hmm... after a brief telephonic conversation I took the fuse to a family friends' house, who confirmed with his multi-meter that the fuse was ok. Once again, now what? By this point I had exhausted my limited knowledge of things electrical (hey! I haven't studied that area of science since high school!) An idea came to me: I went back home, reconnected the battery, put in the fuse and hit the power button on the inverter... and then there was light!

It is at this point that the pedants in the audience may be thinking: "What the heck (YKWIM) has this got to do with a comp. sci. education?" Well, not everybody would have tried the old reboot-and-it-may-work troubleshooting methodology—years of troubleshooting my own and other people's computers have taught me to fall back on the The Old Faithful when stumped.

"Big whup!", says the pedant, "Anybody who's used a computer (especially of the Windows persuasion) for a couple of years could have done that." Yeah, yeah, ok, whatever! I am nonetheless going to credit my comp. sci. education with this one, unless you want to meet me outside and debate this point in a frank manner, Mr. P.

Wordsmithing, Part Deux

[Wordsmithing, Part One]

The other day it struck me that maybe "big" is no longer enough of a euphemism for "fat". I mean, when you call someone "big", they know very well what you mean. Plus sometimes a person is just big, not fat. This called for some original thinking...

Gravitationally challenged: Somebody who's more than averagely challenged by the Earth's gravity (formerly called "big" (and before that it was called "fat")).


No longer will anybody have to suffer humiliation because of their... ummm... gravitational challenges.

The I-am-a-wordsmith Edition

Sometimes the lexicon of the English language proves inadequate for my needs. So I do what any inventive person would do: I go down the DIY route to fill in the gaps. Here are a few examples:

Space-time argument: when two (or more) entities try to occupy the same point in space at the same point in time. This is also sometimes simplistically referred to as an accident or a collision.

Geniosity: The measure of a person's genius. Most frequently used in a sentence like, "My geniosity knows no bounds."

Geniass: Variation of "genius". This is a person who thinks he or she is a genius but is actually an ass/stupid. Pronounced just like "genius", except "us" is replaced by "ass", with the emphasis on "ass". So, phonetically: genie-ASS. A geniass' geniosity is very low.

Yessirmaam: For when you have to say yessir to a lady (how did they miss this one?!).

100 Push-ups Program, Week 1: OMG!

This is really bad! This is pathetic :-(! Today marks the end of week 1 of the 100 push-ups program... and I am going to have to repeat this week :-(... I had expected to have to repeat at least two of the weeks out of the 6 week program, but I was hoping it wouldn't be the first week itself—but such was not to be the case.

I had failed miserably on the first day of the program, and realized that maybe the initial test had given me a false positive, so decided to shift down a gear. The second and third days of week 1 were done according to the lower category. Things were better, but I still couldn't complete the sets.

Week 1, Day 2: I was able to complete the first two of five sets, and from there on the reps fell off sharply. I did 6/6, 8/8, 4/6, 2/6 and 1/7 across my five sets (the second number represents the number of reps one is supposed to do in that set; in the case of the 5th set, that represents the minimum number of reps to be completed). Bad Super-bad!

Week 1, Day 3: This time I was able to complete three out of the five sets (an improvement, yay!) despite the increase in the number of reps for each set. The figures for today are: 8/8, 10/10, 7/7, 4/7, 3/10. It is noteworthy that the fall-off in number of reps isn't as sharp as last time either. So definitely an improvement, but still not good enough.

The inescapable conclusion is that I'll have to repeat this week. Week two for me will be week one repeated. Real progress will have to wait.

One thing I did find surprising is that despite the utter failure of my muscles to complete the latter sets, I don't feel the kind of burning pain in the muscles that one usually feels during the first week of weight training. Am I not trying hard enough? Definitely doesn't feel like it: during each of the last reps of my incomplete sets, I've ended up on the floor, because I simply could not complete the rep. My form is pretty decent—if not good—so I am not cheating on the reps. Anyway, time and progress will tell just how well I am doing.

Till next week, adios!

Started the 100 Push-ups Program

So I started the 100 push-ups program today. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to reach 100 push-ups in just 6 weeks, but I thought I'd give the program a try, as it would give some structure to my efforts to improve my fitness. Based on an initial test, the program tells you what number of "good-form" push-ups you should target over 5 sets a day, 3 days a week, 6 weeks total (ideally). If in any week you are not able to meet the program's targets, you repeat that week and then move on. I am going to have to change my first week's expectations :-(... "here's how it happened" (any Monk fans in the house?): in my initial test, I did 13 push-ups. That put me in the highest category for beginners... oh how I was promised only to be deceived! According to the program, I was supposed to do 10, 12, 7, 7 and (minimum) 9 push-ups in 5 sets on the first day of the first week of the program. All I could manage was :-(... 10, 8, 3, 1,1 (here's where I melt in shame). My chest strength has always been below-par for my weight category (except in 9th class, when I was comfortably increasing my push-up count by 5 every week—up to 45 in a single set—till I lost interest). My muscular strength improvements have always come very slowly (even though I was very good in sports in school and during bachelors). So obviously my initial test was some kind of a false positive. From the next day onwards, I going to follow the program as if I'd done 6-10 push-ups in my initial test—so 6, 8, 6, 6 and (minimum) 7 are going to be my target reps for each of the 5 sets of day 2, week 1. I think it will take me at least 8 weeks to reach 100 push-ups. Let's see... My fitness-improvement situation isn't completely hopeless though: I have dropped from 106 kgs (234 lbs) to 93 kgs (205 lbs) in nine months. Something is better than nothing, I keep telling myself...

Solar Eclipse and Misapprehensions Around It

It is surprising and irritating to me when even well-educated people will hold on to superstitions rather than argue scientific facts. The most recent thing that brought this up was the solar eclipse of this morning. It is common knowledge that one should not look directly at a solar eclipse; however, the reasons for this are usually not well understood among the general population (at least in India). The way people tell it, something magical/evil happens to the light of the sun and it destroys eyes. Apparently food also spoils more easily/quickly during a solar eclipse! Ever since I was a child, I didn't like the explanation for why a solar eclipse would hurt one's eyes. After all, there is less light during a solar eclipse, so how does it magically become more harmful? Looking directly at the sun is a bad idea at any time, how does it get so much worse during a solar eclipse. When pressed for explanations, people would talk falteringly about the greater amount of UV rays, and/or the "quality of light" being different etc. None of the explanations I'd heard seemed to make sense. The moon isn't a large enough celestial object to affect the sun's light by its gravitational pull (not that I understand enough physics to know how, if at all, the gravitational pull of a body can affect light other than to bend it), so what was going on? I surmised that the real harm comes from otherwise (i.e., without parental warnings for as long as one can remember) being fooled into thinking from the darkness of a solar eclipse (especially a full eclipse) that it was safe to look at it with the naked, unprotected eye. Turns out I was very close to the truth—this is what Wikipedia's article on solar eclipses has to say on viewing the eclipse:

Under normal conditions, the Sun is so bright that it is difficult to stare at it directly, so there is no tendency to look at it in a way that might damage the eye. However, during an eclipse, with so much of the Sun covered, it is easier and more tempting to stare at it. Unfortunately, looking at the Sun during an eclipse is just as dangerous as looking at it outside an eclipse, except during the brief period of totality, when the Sun's disk is completely covered (totality occurs only during a total eclipse and only very briefly; it does not occur during a partial or annular eclipse). Viewing the Sun's disk through any kind of optical aid (binoculars, a telescope, or even an optical camera viewfinder) is never recommended and is extremely hazardous. Glancing at the Sun with all or most of its disk visible is unlikely to result in permanent harm, as the pupil will close down and reduce the brightness of the whole scene. If the eclipse is near total, the low average amount of light causes the pupil to open. Unfortunately the remaining parts of the Sun are still just as bright, so they are now brighter on the retina than when looking at a full Sun. As the eye has a small fovea, for detailed viewing, the tendency will be to track the image on to this best part of the retina, causing damage.

So that is that! Nothing magical happens to the sun or its light. Thank you Wikipedia! I love science and the scientific way.