Periodic memory dump

Learning No-limit hold 'em poker

2007-09-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

No-limit hold 'em Poker is not what most people initially expect it to be. They would like to see a more predictable game where the best starting hands win. It is more true with people who have been playing other games like chess. But no-limit is a very different game. Due to Poker on TV and multi-million dollar prizes, no limit is the most popular variant of poker played (online and offline). Its not easy to find a $1-$2 limit hold 'em game.

No-limit hold 'em is a totally different game compared to limit hold 'em. Most books will have to start somewhere and hence would start with an over-simplified version. Some even simplify it to a single table to remember! New players who follow all the "good advice" will soon realize that things are not going as they expected. At the same time you can see that some players who do not know any theory (but have a "feel" for the game) make more money.

I like to think of poker as the combination of 3 things. Cards (hole cards & board), Chip stack (money on table, bankroll, etc) and Opponents' tendencies.
Among these, probably cards are the easiest to explain. There are a set of card combinations, winning percentages, odds, outs and so on that keeps repeating. It is a lot easier to explain these concepts (that are already complex enough for a beginner), if you ignore the effect of stack sizes and opponent dispositions. Thats what most books do.

Even by following these "rules", the winnings keep fluctuating, mostly leaving the player, more or less even. Most players blame that on luck and continue.
Some experienced players advise beginners to play according to these "rules" because thats what they expect everyone to do. Things go terribly wrong when someone disrupts this "understanding". But the "good theoretical players" would console each other and blame it on a foolish player who does not know how he is supposed to play, and got lucky.

This game is about winning more money, not winning more hands. Winning more hands may not win you more money. In No-limit you are playing to take all the chips of the opponent(s). This changes the list of things a player has to consider to be a long term winner. Chips stacks and opponents' tendencies become all the more important. It does not matter if you lose (small) with pocket Aces, if you win big with 56 suited! So you can see pros playing all kind of hands in different ways and still winning. They don't seem to follow any rules!

Most books just explain about "short stacks" and "big stacks" briefly, because stack sizes add another order of complexity to the game. It will take some time for a player to get a feel of how others' stacks affect his winnings. Then, to top it all, the human factor adds yet another order of complexity to the whole game!!!

Phil Helmuth (11 WSOP poker bracelet winner) says that, "No-limit hold 'em is 30% about cards and 70% about players".

Most people play poker for fun and would not want to put in all the mental effort to make good decisions. The basic math and observation required itself is too much for most recreational players, let alone fine tuning their calculations for human factors. So they either just rely on luck and learn to live with the losses by playing low limits OR learn it, by feel & experience or from books & experience.

No matter how you get there, if you want to be a long term winner in no limit hold 'em, you will have to understand pot building, effect of chip stacks and understand players. Eventually everybody will get good and bad cards. If you consistently make more money, than what others would with winning hands, and lose less money than what others would when you are beaten, you will make a profit.

More on how to do these in a later post...

$1000 weekend

2007-04-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Another small step in Poker. I played for about 10 hours during the weekend to win more than $1000.

I played 3 sessions (Fri, Sat & Sun) of about 3 hours each. 1-2 No limit Texas Hold 'em with at least 7 players and an average stack of $200. After the first session when I cashed out for $500 I thought that I was just being lucky and it would even out soon. So I went back the next day and was able to repeat the same. On the 3rd day I got a little unlucky and I lost my initial buy-in in the first hand (Pockets Aces) when somebody hit his set on the flop. But the rest of the night was better and I cashed out for $500 third time.

Most people play loose on these small stake tables. 4-6 players see the flop every hand. I play very tight but get called anyway. So even though I play only a couple of hands in an hour, I can pretty much double up every time I hit.
Now since people have started noticing me, I have to mix up my game a bit to confuse them. Its fun when you keep winning :)

Another small step in my Poker journey

2007-03-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I won 2 Poker tournaments back to back. I was placed first in the first tournament and second place in the following one. This felt very good because many senior players play in this tournament. This time I felt like I was playing well and kept on playing "by the book".

This No-limit Hold 'em tournament is conducted by the National Poker league. Now I am ready to go the Regional tournament and make some money :)
All the investment in reading books is finally paying off. Now I have taken up the books like "Mathematics of Poker", "Theory and Practice of Poker", "Small Stakes Hold em", etc. Lets see how it goes ;)

Won my first Poker tournament

2007-01-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

Today I came first in a local poker league game. I had been looking forward to this day for more than a month.

I started playing poker after I bought the XBOX 360 and the World Series of Poker game. Then I found the National League of Poker. They conduct poker tournaments at the local pubs. About 30-60 players show up for each of these tournaments. I have come second and third many times. In fact I came third on my first day. But I could never make it to the first place.

I watched others play and read articles on the internet. Then I read the 3 volume series by Dan Harrington and the Poker tells book by Mike Caro. The books were a good start but I had to adapt to the style of the local players. The books are typically written for professional high stakes tournaments. I have to read the books at least a couple more times to grasp all that content. I also have to practice more to calculate pot odds and card outs faster so that I can observe the other players better.

But today, even with my basic level skills and some luck, I made it all the way to the first place!

Trailer of CET 96 Reunion 2006, Las Vegas

2007-01-02T15:19:00.001-08:00


My first home video using iMovie and iDVD... 10th year reunion of the 1996 batch from The College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Held at Las Vegas. Attended by Abey Mullassery, Bijoy P, Ganeshram, Girish P, Gopal Ashok, Mahesh C, Musthafa, Rajesh H, Rajkumar R, Sangeeth C, Sandeep, Shebeen Usman, Vinod Mohan, Vinod N, etc.

Indian genes would take care of their population explosion problem soon.

2006-11-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Indian Killer Belly!

www.littleindia.com/news/139/ARTICLE/1390/2006-11-12.html

Indian men, no matter where they live, have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world, even if they have low levels of traditional risk factors such as cholesterol. In fact, even non-smoking vegetarians under 40 who exercise regularly may be at high risk.

Under mainstream standards, a BMI of 25 is considered normal, 25-30 is considered overweight and more than 30 is considered obese. Says Enas: "Indians have a tendency to collect fat collectively in their abdomen. Women have a tendency before menopause to collect the fat in their thighs and buttocks, not in their bellies. But after menopause the fat distribution is different, and they have a tendency for abdominal obesity at earlier and lower weight. So the cut point for Indians is different. A BMI of 23-25, which is normal for Americans, is considered overweight for Indians and 25 becomes obese."

With population explosion taken care of, will the real estate prices drop?!?

Will it affect outsourcing to India?!! :D

A series of unfortunate events!

2006-11-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

Ram, a colleague of mine, whose real name shall remain secret, made a 4 month trip to India. Before he left, his friend advised him to move his things to a storage place and save rent for 4 months. Ram thought that it is a good idea and told the apartment staff that he wanted to move out. But according to the lease, he had to give a 60 day notice or pay the equivalent rent. So he paid $1300 and an additional $600 for leaving the place in a mess. He did not have enough time to clean it up or move the furniture since this was a last minute plan.

After Ram left, as promised, his friend moved his things (single bedroom furniture) with the help of some movers ($700) to a storage place that charges $200. But he could not move Ram's car on the same day. So he left the car keys with the apartment staff and told them that another friend of his would come and take the car. Now the apartment staff knew that the car did not belong there. His friend did not show up for the next couple of days and they towed his car away to a far away yard. When his friend came to know about it, he tried to get it back but they would not let anyone other than the owner to retrieve it.

So Ram had to get it himself when he returned. He went multiple times to his old apartment office but after such a long time they had lost the keys. So he had to go to the car dealer to make a new set of keys for $50. He took the new key to the towing yard but the key did not work. So he went back to the dealer again. This time the dealer realized her mistake and made the correct one.The towing place charged $1100 for keeping the car for so long. After getting his car, he went to get his furniture. His friend had put his things in a far away storage even though there were many cheaper places within a mile. He negotiated with some movers to move his stuff for $200. Later, the movers called him from the storage place because his friend had not paid for the storage and the staff over there was furious! So he had to go to the storage place, settle his bill and get the stuff.

Rent for 2 months instead of the notice period - $1300

Cleaning and carpet replacement charges - $600

Movers and storage far away - $900

Towing yard charges - $1100

Duplicate car keys - $100

Hotel for 10 days while you find a new place - $800

Movers to move back your stuff - $200

Friends that help you with free advice and shoddy work - PRICELESS!

Awaiting my new Macbook

2006-11-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

I just ordered a new Macbook with the new Core 2 Duo Intel chip, 2 GB RAM and 160GB HDD. I also ordered a wireless keyboard, mouse and photo printer.

It may sound foolish to spend more than $2000 on a small mac when there are so many "better" value-for-money laptops available. Its just that I wanted to buy a mac for a long time for their software. I use iMovies and iDVD a lot (at a friends place). The rest of the environment like Eclipse, Java, Ruby etc is all the same. I would also like to buy the Final Cut Express soon.

The 13 inch is just right for me because I like to move around with it and use an external monitor when at home. I dont need the video card because I dont play 3D games on it (thats what Xbox and Playstation is for ;) ). I am planning to connect my Macbook to my 37" HDTV and use it as a monitor while I sit back with the wireless keyboard and mouse. I also plan to load Windows on it with Parallels software.

I hope to post blogs more often (starting with my first impressions about the Macbook), once I get my new laptop (I gave away my old one and have only the office laptop). It should arrive early next week.

The specs are...

Macbook 13 inch White (Z0DT)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM

160GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm

Superdrive 6x Dual Layer DVD Read/Write

No Modem

Apple Mini-DVI to VGA Adapter

Canon PIXMA MP600 All-in-one photo printer

Bluetooth Mighty Mouse

Bluetooth Apple Keyboard

From Pebble 1.9 to 2.0 RC2

2006-10-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Overall I am happy with pebble, especially since Simon keeps updating it periodically.

It was not easy to upgrade because pebble 2.0 requires Java 1.5 and my Free BSD is not one of the supported platforms by Sun. So I had to wait to get a port.

I was facing so many problems with responses/comments management. Thankfully the new update works fine for me except with some blank posts. Some SPAM posters post a blank comment and pebble throws an exception if I try to remove them.

I have to find a way to make it recognize my old categories. Just adding the same categories did not work.

I also have to figure out who to bring back my old theme.

The calendar on the sidebar does not go back to the last year. So it is better to use the links next to the "Home" link to navigate to past months.

For some strange reason the list of my recent posts on my home page, that is dynamically built from the rss.xml has stopped working. I have to look into that too.

It has a new Rich text editor. A spell check feature would have been great :)

More after I look into it again during the weekend.

Drive Smart

2006-02-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

I had to attend the internal "DriveSmaRRt" training session yesterday. Some of the statistics discussed in the class were:-

About 100 people die everyday in the US due to road accidents (That's about 36,000 a year).

Average response time for a person above 25 years is 2 seconds. After than it increases by about a second with every 15 years of age.

Your response time increases by a second for every beer consumed.

It takes about 4 hours to wash out one bottle of beer from your system.

Less than 8% survive a head-on collision.

In Texas, 1 in every 15 is driving after consuming alcohol/drugs. Over the weekend it becomes 1 in every 10.

In Texas, more than 30% of the drivers carry weapons.

A few years back, when the speed limit was increased from 55mph to 70mph, the automobile industry grew by 11%

Reverse Exodus

2006-01-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

India is getting expensive!

In the Indian Silicon valleys, the traffic is getting crazy, real-estate prices have sky-rocketed and developers available have as much technical expertise as the business managers.

I think this is a good indication. Keep your money ready to buy some stock and real-estate when all this crashes >:)

"You don't have to be a 'Computer idiot' if you don't want to be"

2006-01-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

I saw this line in a reply to a question, on a forum. The person who asked the question had mentioned that, he had some silly doubts because he was a "Computer Idiot" (must have meant "Computer illiterate").

It is valid for all developers. Very few read a software/hardware related book, or try some new software, at least once every month. Some have not read a book since they got their Computer Science degree!

They have the option to become a "manager" and take pride in the fact that they don't know technical stuff.

OR

They don't have to remain... um... ignorant, if they don't want to.

Profit-sharing with Customers

2006-01-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

My next venture is going to be an online service (nobody uses the word "dot-com company" anymore :) ). I am still at the prototyping phase but I am also preparing the business plan and the road-map.

One of the thoughts I had was that, I could offer the customers more than just the service. Like many other online services, the success of the service depends on building a critical mass quickly. In fact, it could be a failure if the customer base is not big enough for anyone to derive much value out of it. So in short, the customers who believe in my service during the inception, plays a decisive role in its success. Does that mean that they deserve something more?

Would it be proper if you share some part of the profits with these customers. It could vary depending on their participation and activity.

But would this is considered as an introductory offer OR construed as bribe?!

Does it make sense to set apart a percentage of shares for the customers, the dividends of which would be divided among the customers, at least as services on the website. This also means that if you could drive the service with income from sources other than the subscription, the extra money would fund the subscription charges for the customers, essentially making it a totally free service.

I am sure someone must have tried it already and there may be a reason why we don't hear about this a lot nowadays.

Just a thought. I have not analysed it much yet. I am not even sure of its legal implications.

"Born Again" vs Born again Christians

2006-01-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

Since this is my blog, I can write anything I feel. What I am about to explain is about a small but active group of people I have met. They are ruining the reputation (whatever little is left) of a lot of Christians. Something made me remember all this yesterday.

I proclaimed myself as a born again Christian, during a retreat for the youth, in our church. At various other times everyone in my family has done it too. I belong to a very old traditional Christian family that believes that you become a true Christian when you are born again (accept Christ as your saviour and proclaim it) AND follow the life of a Christian.

But then we met a new breed of "Born Again Christians". They are a new age group of elitists like SOME Pentecostals. The rule is that their tithes (one-tenth of your earnings), loyalty, etc., should always remain within the group.

If they have some tough times, it is God's *test*. But if others have tough times, it is God's *punishment*.

If they falter that is due to *human imperfections* that will be forgiven. But if others falter, it is *Satan's influence* that will be punished.

If they prosper it is God's *blessing*. But if others prosper it is *"the rise before the big fall"*.

If someone among them has a problem, they will all pray for a solution. But if others have a problem, they will pray, if you agree to join them

This is a group of people who are in the "cult" for reasons other than siprituality. I am sure there are many genuine people in the same group who are unaware of all this. Eventually most of them would find out and leave the group.

I have seen so many "Born Again"/Pentecostals who do not practice anything in their life other than ritualistic prayers. I hate such double standards. I believe that one's life should be one's best testimony, that attracts other people to Christ; not threats of eternal doom and immediate punishment.

Mathew 25:45 - "And he will answer, 'I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.' And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life."

I am not saying that I am a saint myself nor am I using others' bad lives as an excuse. It is just that I have seen hundreds of people who live rotten so-called-Christian lives. Preachers, pastors, etc., used to frequent my house from my Grandfather's times and still do. I have seen many good Christians as well but it is sad to see so many hypocrites. I think, the idea behind not having a idol to worship is to avoid the possibility of the idol becoming the God. Now we have a situation where the ritual (prayers) becomes the religion.

Recently my mother said that she would like to her daughter-in-law to be a born again Christian. I quickly educated her about what that means now-a-days. I can't even use the word "Born again" anymore, in the old sense.

It would great to see anyone who leads a born again Christian life in private and let others see the fruits of your blessings.

There would be an aura of peace and happiness around them.

They would feel love and compassion to everyone.
They would not have to publicize that they are born again Christians.

New Year in New York

2006-01-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

2005 was a happening year and it ended with us being thrown out of a club in Manhattan. They say, "You have not partied enough till you ~~drop~~ are thrown out". Thankfully that was not the highlight of the evening. I had a great time inspite of being the only single guy in the group. I hope every one else did too.

My friends had planned a get together in New York/ New Jersey for the New Year's Eve.

Mahesh & Anu and Sangeeth & Pooja played the hosts. Bijoy & Saru flew in from Denver, Krishnakumar (Kinnan) & Deepti flew in from Indianapolis, Ganesh & Archana flew in from Boston, and I flew in from Houston.

I had some more friends in New Jersey whom I could not meet like Sukesh, Shabeen, Vinu and Vinod V. K.
Joseph Koshy (Maju) & Loveena flew in from Chicago. Eventhough he was not with us for the get together I was able to meet him on the 1st.

If the guys from the west coast could make it, it would have been a bigger get together.

I flew in on the 29th and met Kinnan & Deepti at Mahesh's place the next day. Their flight was delayed and the airlines lost Deepti's luggage. Hence she had to do some shopping. Anu and Deepti went out for shopping while we settled for some "appetizers" and nostalgic memories. We talked to some friends over the phone, exchanged some "old stories" that were unknown so far and had a great time. I have some videos of the same. Bijoy and Ganesh were supposed to drive down from Boston earlier that day but, the story is that Ganesh avoided him with some shrewd tactics and sent him to New York on a bus (not even Greyhound) and hence got delayed. However Ganesh drove to New York with his wife the very next day! ;)

Later that evening we went to Sangeeth's place where we met Sangeeth & Pooja and Bijoy & Saru. Boy! everyone is into body building/sculpting. I looked lanky and impoverished compared to them! There were huge/bulk muscle builders, lean muscle builders and then no-muscle builder(me)!!

They made fun of my camcorder and its jewel-box. So I left it in the car; a decision I regretted later because of the events that followed.

We had decided to go out to a club (instead of some casinos as we had decided earlier) and Sangeeth took us to a street in West Village. He wasn't sure if we would like his choice and hence walked us along the street checking out a few clubs. We walked back a bit and finally decided on "1849".

Krishna suggested that we all start with a couple of rounds of Tequila and then beer to get into the mood quickly. It was amusing to see the ladies gulp down the shots. But overall I think it did have its effect and we started dancing after a short while. I was not planning to do anything till Mahesh pulled me onto the floor. I did my set of tribal moves and mating calls. Thankfully everyone else was drunk enough not to take offense.

I think it is customary in the dance clubs of New York & New Jersey to play Bhangra mixes too. I saw a few who were wondering what to do for this kind of music. Being the helpful person I am, I helped them with a few Bhangra steps (I thought it was close enough).

Finally when I got tired, I sat down and began taking some photos. I wanted to take a shot from above and stood up on the couch (In retrospect, removing the shoes would have been a good gesture). Somebody pulled me down, my friends tried to reason with him, they were sent out, I followed and what not. Anyway everything happened so quickly and we were out of that place in no time. But we did not have any regrets since it was closing time. We took a limo back home. Some played with the wine glasses in the limo but thankfully did not break any.

We reached Sangeeth's place in Newport by about 2:30 am. We sat around to give our feet some rest. Thats when Kinnan started an "Antakshari". It was just fun initially but it became real fun when Kinnan and Sangeeth started acting out (muscle flexing) the songs. That's when I really missed my camcorder. Their respective wives did not seem to be very amused as they were already tired. After many "well-adapted" songs and some "intelligent" score-keeping by Sangeeth, the "guy's team" won! We decided to call it a day at 5 am.

The next day we were supposed to meet but by the time we all woke up it was late. Moreover it was snowing and we stay put in our places till the evening.

Bijoy had decided to go to a Desi party in New York because his wife's cousins had already bought the tickets. Sangeeth & Pooja decided to give him company. Initially I was not keen on the Desi party but I was not aware of the fact that Bijoy wife's cousins were all single ladies! It was too late by the time I came to know; I had already fought against the Desi party so hard :P

The rest of us bought tickets to Movida, a club in Manhattan. It was supposed to be a place frequented by movie stars.

However we all decided to meet at the "better place" after 1 am or so.

We reached Movida at around 10:30 pm. The place was very small and crowded. For some reason it did not look as stylish as the photographs on their website. Our hearts sank; maybe the Desi party was a better idea! But for a single guy like me, the New Year's Eve with a group of couples was anyway going to be bad; so I did not mind. To our relief we found that there were more floors and those were much better. Everybody had a good time. I posed for photographs, got introduced a lawyer from UK who came to NY just to spend her NYE there and danced a bit.

The real fun started when we wanted to leave the club by around 1 am. We found that there was a long queue on the way out. They were waiting to get their coats. The club lost the tags on the coats and got it all messed up. That was the beginning of a 2 hour long wait to get our coats and pushing our way in the multi-directional-queue-like-formation. I was lucky to get mine quickly but had to wait for my friends. I took a seat on a corner-couch and watched the tempers running high. Many found it difficult to carry themselves. They were "ready" to leave if not for their coats/jackets. A lady fell into my lap; I helped her up and she fell again. Then she got up and stood leaning on the wall but a little later she fell on the floor.

My friends (wives and hence their spouses) who had to wait long to get their coats did not find all this very amusing. I don't think they even liked my sneaky comments about all this.

Bijoy and Sangeeth had called many times by then but we decided not to meet them and hurried home since it was almost 4 am.

All this while, we were thinking that the Desi party would have been a much better choice than ours. But then, ours was not bad except for the coat issue.

When I talked to Sangeeth the next day, he said that they did not even go to the Desi party. The had VIP tickets but could not go in due to some ID problem. Later when Bijoy & Saru did go in, they found that it was a total mess with thousands of people, and came out immediately. They spent the rest of their time club/pub hopping in Manhattan.

I think everyone who went to Movida was so happy that it was not so bad from them. See, happiness is relative!

I had my flight back to Houston the very next day. The airport was busy due to the holiday season and eventhough I checked-in online and left about two and a half hours early, I just made it. I reached Houston at around 8:30 pm and the temperature was in the 70s, a big drop from the 30/40s in NY.
I think the rest of them went and ate. Obviously they were hungry after all this :)

Christmas at the Casinos

2005-12-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

I did not have any special plans for the Christmas weekend... neither did some of my friends in my apartment complex. One guy came down from Dallas too. We were a group of losers with no family and nothing to do on Christmas. So we decided to drive to some place close by.

I had been to San Antonio & Austin before, and one guy just came from Dallas. So we had to go to Louisiana or Mexico. I wanted to check out the casinos at Lake Charles and hence we set off to Lake Charles yesterday morning.

We reached "L’Auberge du Lac" by noon. It stood out in the flat neighborhood. It is the latest and probably the biggest casino there. We saw hoardings announcing concerts by Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie and show Bill Cosby. It must be a happening place in Lake Charles. However if you have been to Las Vegas or Atlantic city before you may not be thrilled. However it is not fair to expect anything close to what you have in Vegas, in a small town like Lake Charles.

We spent some time roaming around the blackjack tables. All of them we occupied. Most of the players were Asians and were very serious about the game. I did not see many who were having fun while playing; instead they seemed to be playing with a vengeance. The atmosphere is much more tensed and serious that in Vegas.

After some waiting, I joined a $10 blackjack table while the others went to check out the other areas of the hotel and the lunch buffet. By the time they returned, I had lost "enough" money. So we decided to leave. On our way out my friends "donated" some more money by playing the slot machines for a short time. Then we decided to move on to the next Hotel.

Soon we realized that almost all the places were closed for Christmas. We checked out Harrah's on the way but it was also shut down. So we moved on to the Isle of Capri Hotel.

Isle of Capri was designed like a big boat. I thought that it was more appealing than the L’Auberge. We had our lunch at the Hotel and relaxed for a while. Then we went to check out the gambling. Each floor (deck) had a different type of game. I soon found the "blackjack deck". They had some $5 tables too. I once again decided to try my luck with Blackjack. Thankfully this time I was very lucky. I won many times what I put in, and covered all my losses. Sometime during the game, my friends who were roaming around the casino, found me. They watched me play and was surprised at the way I was winning. They did not see me lose at the other casino. After sometime they go fed up and wanted to leave. I thought it was a good time to leave when I am in a good position.

.
We drove back to Houston just in time to hit the local clubs.

Learning more than tennis from Sarah Flood

2005-12-24T02:12:00.000-08:00

I have started taking some tennis lessons. I like tennis and I think it is easier to get a tennis partner to play with, than 9 more guys for basketball (which is still my favorite game).

Sarah Flood, my trainer, is a tennis pro from UK. She is pursuing her PhD at the University of Houston and offers tennis lessons during her spare time.

Today I came to know of the details of a severe accident she had in 2002.

I am posting some portion of an article in The Daily Cougar Online, about her accident and recovery.

Only hours after attending her mother's funeral in England that fateful Tuesday morning, Flood was involved in a head-on automobile collision. After being revived at the scene of the wreck and spending six days on life support, the UH tennis player was determined to prove the experts wrong and walk again.

"They told me I might be paralyzed and would definitely never play tennis again," Flood said. "I'm the kind of person that doesn't deal well with people telling me what I can't do."

Flood returned to Houston that following January and began extensive rehabilitation. Her injuries — which included two collapsed lungs, a ruptured spleen, a lacerated liver and a broken hip — were not enough to keep the 20-year-old down.

"First I learned to walk again, and then I learned to run," she said. "I told everyone I would play the Cougar Classic this fall. Some said I was crazy for attempting it, but I was determined to get back into tennis."

Flood's passion for the game drove her to work harder at improving her health. This weekend, the 5-3 sophomore placed third in the doubles bracket of the Cougar Fall Classic.

It is quite normal that you regard such a person highly. But everytime I hear a story like this, I ask myself if I would have had the strength to come out of a similar situation; and the truth hurts! I had a similar feeling when I saw the movie "Million Dollar Baby".

It is not the first time that I have closely interacted with an achiever like Sarah. I have friends who have dedicated years to master something, sacrificing a good lifestyle and all income.

I wonder if I can ever come close... focused and dedicated to a cause. Even though I see such strong personalities in real life, I continue with my laziness. All I do is think, make detailed plans and then procrastinate.

My friends, colleagues and relatives may think that I am successful. But almost all of the things I do well are due to the abilities/talents I have; not hard work. If I had even a quarter of the will power that these people have, I believe I can do wonders!

"It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices" - Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

"If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you" - Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris in Million Dollar Baby.

I hope I learn more than just tennis from Sarah. Something that she has that cannot be taught; and if I do, it is worth more than a million New Year resolutions.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Movie reviews

2005-12-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

I put, the time I gain by not watching TV and much more, into watching movies.

Since this now a major pastime for me, I am thinking of posting short reviews of the movies I watch, on my blog. I once did write a little about the movie "Ray"

I wanted to start with the list of movies I watched within the last two months.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

An Unfinished Life

Memento

Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy

Born into brothels

Peter Pan

Constantine

A Guy Thing

Harold and Kumar goes to White Castle

Man on Fire

Towering Inferno

Lemony Snicket's A series of unfortunate events

Phantom of the Opera

Mooseport

Open Water

Star Wars III

Hostage

Longest Yard

Coach Carter

Robots

Seinfeld - Seasons 1&2 (4 Discs)

Interpreter

Madagascar

Fever Pitch

Flight Plan

Sin City

Garam Masala

Hera Pheri

Shark Tale

Assault on Precinct 13

I also watched some movies again, like...

Incredibles

Office Space

Patriot Games

Pianist

Bruce Lee

Micheal Jordan

Aviator

Sholay

Dil Chahta Hai

and I am about to watch...

Alexander

Million Dollar baby

Now where do I start!?!

Boat house going nowhere

2005-12-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

Posted some photographs from my trip to Kerala with Matt Novi.

My new toys

2005-11-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

I got my new set of gadgets/ toys for the year. I gave more importance to value for money than brand and so on.

I selected the Syntax Olevia LT37HVS 37" HDTV because it had the best features in its price range and to get even a slightly better TV I had to spend at least twice amount.

I bought it from the local Microcenter for about $1600 (hoping to get back $500 in mail-in rebates :P ).

It has a built-in HD tuner that allows you to directly connect an HD antenna and get the OTA (Over The Air) free HD channels.

It can support High Definition resolutions upto 1366x768 i.e., 1080i (interlaced) or 780p (progressive). If you connect it to a Progressive DVD player, you can see DVDs at 480p and that looks good.

It claims to have a 8ms response time that is required if you are watching fast action sports or playing games. Some say that the actual response times may be lesser.

It has all the inputs that you need. 2 Component, 2 S-Video, 1 HDMI, 2 composite, VGA, etc. I use Sony THX Component Monster cables and the clarity is much better compared to the normal composite connection.

Both the speakers are 20W each and are just okay but you need external speakers to enjoy DVDs and HD programs. That's why I bought the Onkyos.

Onkyo HT-S780 7.1 Home Theater System and Onkyo DV-CP702 6 disc DVD player

Onkyo is an established player in the audio market. I found some very good reviews about the system and a good deal on the Onkyo website. The Home Theater itself does not have a DVD player but the receiver/ amplifier received great reviews.

They bundled the DVD player with the HT at a discounted price of $450. After a quick search on Google I found a promotion code that gave me an additional $90 discount. I also got $10 off for registering at their website. So the total price I paid was $350 with no taxes and free shipping ($450 - $90 -$10). I think it is well worth the money I paid.

I will edit this post a few days later to add more about the system..

Just before these purchases I got my Dell 700m 12.1" laptop. I wanted an ultra-portable so that I don't have to think twice before carrying my laptop with me. I thought I will get more work done that way :P

I added almost all the upgrades possible like Windows XP Professional, 1 GB RAM, Wireless a/b/g, Windows Media center with Remote, 80 GB HDD and the extended battery.

I used a online discount coupon for $750. So my total with the Free printer, taxes and shipping was $1200.

The battery lasts for about 6 hours if you are not using the DVD player a lot.

The screen is very bright but the highly reflective screen makes it difficult to work at times. It is supposed to give a better movie viewing experience.

It is light and small enough to carry around but the extra battery attachment is not so sturdy/well-connected. So you have to make sure not to hold it on that side.

The major drawback I found later was the lack of bluetooth support. I wanted to connect it to my Syntax TV and work from a distance with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. But I am not terribly bothered about it since there are alternatives to it.

I upgraded the Free printer to the Dell All-in-one Photo printer 942. I think it is useful to have an All-in-one printer at home. At least you will need it to send in all your mail-in-rebates :).

It outputs pretty good photos if you use good photo paper.

I also bought the Maxtor 300 GB external Hard Disk with my laptop. It supports both USB 2.0 and Firewire.

I use it to store a lot of video files captured from my MiniDV camcorder (Sony PCR DC-350) and backup using Norton Ghost. It is silent too.

Now all I am waiting for is the XBox 360.

Upgraded to Pebble 1.9

2005-11-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

I upgraded my blogging software to the 1.9 version. I was having a real bad time with Denial-Of-Service attacks and Spam . I am unable to delete some of the comments but otherwise it is working fine and the transition/upgrading was much smoother than the older versions.

The Tags and Tag clouds are my favorite new features.

Quick vacation

2005-02-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

I was on a vacation for most of February. I started from Austin, TX, on the 29th of January. I went to Las Vegas where I met my old school-mate Sandeep. I spend 3 days in Vegas and then went to Bangkok via San Francisco. Sandeep returned to Seattle. I had taken a a package for 3 days and stayed at the Ambassador Hotel. From Bangkok I went to Bangalore. I stayed in Bangalore for a week and then went to Kerala. I visited my parents in Trivandrum and my relatives in central Travancore. And now after all that travel I am back to office in Bangalore.

As I had mentioned in the earlier blog, I had my camcorder/digital camera with me throughout. I have uploaded a few (I am using a free account) of the photos to www.flickr.com. I just started capturing the video from the tapes to my computer. I have to learn the basics of digital video editing software and edit them. I am planning to try the Adobe Premier Pro

Initially I wanted to blog about my trip but now I am taking some time to just write about my experiences that are unique. I don't think I should repeat the same information about Bangkok or Vegas that is freely available on the Internet. So I will write my "unique" travelogue later :)

Development environment for my new project

2004-12-01T06:17:00.001-08:00

We have decided to use the following for the development work for Java Smart Cards related software on Linux and other Unix environments including Mac OSX:-

Eclipse with the CDT plugin. This would works on all our target platforms.
SCons instead of Make. We hope it will be helpful since we are planning to release the same software on Unix, Mac and Windows.

Let me know your comments and of any other useful tools.

Three simple rules!

2004-11-28T06:42:00.001-08:00

It great that I can write anything on MY personal blog. Here I am putting down 3 simple rules for those who do not think that they are obvious.

1. It okay not to be omniscient.

It is not possible to know everything about everything in this world (leave alone other worlds!). Hence smart people have areas of interest. It is okay to say "I don't know" (unless that is what you have to say about just everything!)

2. Focus on the "your" issues.

There are a lot of issues and problems in this world ranging from "nuclear proliferation" to "sexual oppression". Focus on issues that will make YOU a better person first; maybe its competence, health, whatever. This will help you and in turn, a lot of people around you. The current "state of the world" is not a good enough reason for your plight.

3. Realize where you stand in relation to the world.

If you think that you should be the center of attraction, try to list a few reasons. Is it genetic superiority or is it inborn talent? Are the manifestations so obvious to others as well?

Otherwise try to put in some smart work and try to be what you aspire to be. In short, it is better not to believe that "you are the culmination of all history" (like Calvin, the 6 year old, believes)

If the above were obvious to you, you are not part of the intended audience.

Relevance of Domain Specific Languages

2004-11-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

I just read Brian Slesinsky's Weblog on Why most of us won't be inventing little languages. It is true because the languages nowadays are not equipped with the facility (except languages like LISP).

I feel that we need the combination of both; generic and domain specific (derivable from the generic language) languages. The flexibility should be present in a language to mold it into a domain specific language (as in LISP using Macros)

When we are developing a reasonably complex application we would want a domain specific language that we could create/change ourselves with ease. This would speed up the development and would help the thinking process. We may also want to "refactor" commonality into a more domain specific language as we go on.

The speed of development comes mainly due to the reduction in the amount of code that needs to be written in a domain specific language and the fact that it helps in thinking about the problem.

But as Brian said, if we are developing a library we would want others to understand and use it. Hence for an API you would want to provide a wrapper in the generic language. Majority of the developers usually try to understand just enough of a library to use it. The wrapper written in a generic/ well known syntax would serve just that.

For example, take the case of imaging..
A domain specific language, in which we can specify transformations, kernel operations, etc., would enable the API developer to add huge amounts of functionality very quickly. On top of it if she adds a wrapper for developers to make direct calls, it would be easy to use.

Anyone who wants to dive deeper and change things would have to understand the domain specific language but that is the price one has to pay for getting so much functionality/ bug-fixes so fast. However the core part would be very concise than if it were to be written in the generic language.
Another way is to "expand" the code written in domain specific language to a readable, generic language.