Back on Track - Reading Books

It is a while (may be close 6 months) since i touched a book [not literally though, i touched them when we shifted to new home as i had to physically touch them for arranging]. I particularly liked this activity. It gave me a guilty feeling. It appeared to me as if the books were saying, "why are you neglecting me? Had i been bought somebody else, would have felt the human touch". So, i thought, i should read them one by one. So, all the books in my cupboard are going to be happy :-)

After careful thinking, i thought i should read "Asking The Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking". I read couple of chapters of "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene (and i was unabated by my lack of understanding on superstring theory) before jumping into "Asking Right Questions". I thought the universe can wait till i correct my thinking flaws :-)

The book "Asking The Right Questions" promises to improve critical thinking for those of you who think critically and to make people like me to think critically (who are not thinking critically or who do not know how to think or forgot it due getting married). So, in next few weeks, i m going to be a superman with my critical thinking :-)

On a serious note, i am glad that i bought the book. After reading couple of chapters, i felt that this book is written exclusively for me (to fix flaws in my thinking). Once i read it completely and put some of the concepts in practice, i shall share my experience with you. You can also become superman.

Great Book on Compilers

Recently, i have been trying to keep myself focused on learning the basics. The interesting thing about this i keep finding something very interesting. The digging things is really very interesting. I failed understand this when i was doing my under graduate degree nevertheless i learned the lesson and from here it is going to be another personal undergrad course in computer science :-) and most of the credits should go to the students who attend our workshops @ OpenGyan.

While i was reading a textbook on C, i found another interesting book and just thought of sharing here. I just skimmed through the table of contents and it is massive 1000+ pages book but it gives an excellent understanding on compilers.

Next to Discrete Mathematics, this book is likely to get into my shelf (and possibly to my brain little later). Please buzz me if you are interested for a group learning.

OpenGyan Workshop in PEC

The last two Saturdays have been nothing less than awesome. It was most satisfying moment in my life as i happen to meet few students of Pondicherry Engineering College, Department of ECE, @ their college campus for two day workshop on Linux Programming from OpenGyan.

First, after a long time, i happen to meet folks who speak in black and white. It is much easier for a teacher or trainer if the students convey whether or not they have understood (especially when they didn't understand). When the understanding is not clear, the teacher should think more and come up with better way of presenting. A teacher can think better only when there are intelligent questions or when an articulation was not understood. For sure, this workshop has sowed a seed of self improvement in me and i should say that this will make me to think better.

Second is the puntuality. We never had a situation where we started the session because of delay due to students. Everybody was there on time (1 or 2 minutes before).

Third and most important aspect is that almost everybody showed genuine interest to listen and "do" the exercises.

Overall, it one of the most fulfilling moment in my life and i hope this continues. Here are few clicks from the event.

And finally, the "moment"

Life Lessons @ OpenGyan

It is always honor if people look up to with trust that you can bring in a change. Top execs take charge after promising that they will bring about a change. Change is something good. Rather than change, we should call it shifts, a paradigm shift. Change is not so easy, it is pretty involved. Though there is a hope of turnaround, the change is not rewarding until it happens. Since it doesn't provide us an instant gratification, often people disengage themselves from the change. This is exactly why top execs are fired (or resign gracefully).

The youth, the students often think that they can do many things. It is true because the potential is always infinite. We have potential to do infinite things because we, the human beings know how to build systems up, from simple systems. Few smaller systems give us a little bigger system and by moving up further, the integration leads to much bigger system. So, it is possible to build infinite things and to produce infinite number of smaller things.

So, when you want to bring about a change (or rather a paradigm shift), keep focus the change, the much bigger and might system and at the same time draw a genuine motivation from milestone. A recent example is OpenGyan. While there is something big behind the idea of OpenGyan, the genuine motivation is drawn during every workshop. The motivation helps me to keep the bigger reason of existence of OpenGyan relevant.

And ultimately, i tend to think that everything decompose on how you break the system (goals, software, human relations, life's challenges) and how you integrate it again.

So, enough?

Our first workshop in 2013 at PEC, Department of ECE, Pudhucherry and eighth workshop (overall) is most satisfying experience.

Visit us http://www.opengyan.com and join us in Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/opengyan

More you share, the more you learn

Knowledge is the only thing that grows when shared. All the other things diminishes when you share. The idea is during the sharing process, you get questions from curious minds that helps to understand the subject more. You tend to uncover a lot of different perspectives by mere thinking. Another perspective is that you tend to study the subject from multiple sources and revise the subject that makes the understanding little deeper.

After a little experience in programming/software development, i wanted to study programming from the scratch. (Gyan from OpenGyan). So, from yesterday, i have started an exercise of reading through Discrete Mathematics. I m planning to follow the book Discrete Mathematics With Applications (Buy from Flipkart.com). I got this book sometime last year and never found a time to read beyond first chapter. This year, i m planning to study this book with a strong focus on solving all the exercises and couple more books on theoretical computer science. 

The idea here is to read, solve problems, share in my workshops and repeat it. If possible, i would be posting interesting puzzles and problems so that it helps folks who are following my blog. Nothing hurts. Once again it is knowledge sharing.

Another few books i find it valuable to read are - Write Great Code (guess, there are few volumes)

Together, we are stronger.

Happy learning.

Life Lessons @ OpenGyan

Meeting great teachers have become a rarity. I m not talking about teaching as a profession but "teaching" as a quality - an ability to be a source of inspiration. I do not have words to express my experience in meeting Dr S Jayaraman, Professor, Dean & Head, Department of Electronics and Communiation Engg @ Sona College of Technology.

OpenGyan Team with Prof Dr S Jayaraman and Prof Ayubkhan

One of the reason why i do exist in OpenGyan is because of my father (who is teacher) and when i meet great teachers like Dr. Jayaraman, my longing towards sharing knowledge grows more. An humble human who speaks less and the words that gets uttered from his mouth revives energy and makes me to feel that i m doing something divine.

I felt uncomfortable to say a "thank you note" but decided not to say "thank you" as i felt the only way of paying him back is "living the life of purpose" and steer OpenGyan's initiatives.

Happy to end 2012 with so much positive vibe and looking forward to make 2013 little more meaningful.

I wish you and your family, friends a very happy and prosperous new year.

Photo Post - Workshop @ ACET, Villianur

As a part of OpenGyan, a week back, i happen to spend a day in Achariya College of Engineering and Technology, Villianur, Puducherry and the workshop was on "Data structures and algorithms". This visit is kind of special to me because for a very long time i have been thinking of contributing back to my home town (Villupuram - the place where i did my schooling/grew up). After visiting this place/college, i feel like i m little closer to my home town (and in a while, i should be back to my home town for another workshop and to Pondy for few more workshops). Surely the visit to Pondy/Villianur is nostalgic (the place where i did shopping for diwalis and engineering books @ Higginbothams @ Pondy)

Here are few clicks from the workshop (and more in coming months).

Why OpenGyan?

For quite sometime couple of my friends and I are doing little weekend work in the banner of OpenGyan. Check out this and this to know more about it. One thing that puzzles people why are we doing this without getting anything back (the fact is that, till now, we didn't get even the traveling allowance or cost and in some cases we request for accommodation in guest house if it requires overnight stay). And this requires an honest answer.

When i thought, i got the following answer (this is my personal view. Though i believe the founders/friends agree with this, i m writing this on my own to keep me grounded and work on the purpose/mission)

• Getting back need not always be material 
• having conducted 10+ workshops, i would say i got more in terms of experience and i cannot equate anything with this.
• Give back if you are privileged to lead a quality life
• Again it depends on people. With the compensation i get from my daytime job thro' my company, i can lead a quality life and feel i can spend a little on my passion.
• Giving back leads to getting back
• I strongly believe that this is an investment but not a spending.
• Pay your fees for learning life lessons
• I cannot afford to set up a college to teach to people. I see this spending as my fees towards realizing my dream/passion
• Meeting young minds is honor but not a job.
• One cannot underestimate the power of young/curious mind. If not for all the above reasons, this one by itself justify the spending i do.
• Get an experience of how to run the show with minimal resources
• Just three folks with each having day time job & family, it requires a lot of endurance to run the show with minimal resources (most importantly time).
• At the end, i makes me happy
• At the end, it is so cool and it makes me happy. So, i better do the things that makes me happy.

More gyan on why OpenGyan later.

Have a happy week.

First Net Sec Workshop by OpenGyan

This is going to be the first workshop on Network Security by OpenGyan. This workshop is designed by Rajkumar. We have the following things in the agenda (but we are not focused to cover everything, we will just cover things based on how things are on the particular day).

• Why network security?
• Elements of Security
• Threat types - Unstructured, structured, Internal and External
• Attacks - Reconnaissance, Access & DoS
• Access attack
• Detection & Prevention

+ a lot of case studies and live demos

We will be again in PSG Tech this Saturday for this workshop.

After this, we will have two consecutive workshops on JVM Architecture one in Vellore and another one in Villupuram. We are working on another workshop during September/October. Stay tuned for future workshops.

In order to inculcate the habit of questioning, we are planning to have a column in our website - Curious Questions. This section will feature all the questions [intelligent, curious ones] that are asked by students/participants along with their name/college. We are in the process of giving it a structure. Again, stay tuned for an update on this in coming weeks.

Spread this goodness - http://www.facebook.com/opengyan

OpenGyan is a non-profit initiative that imparts experiential learning at schools on computing/computers.

5K Performance (33 mins 06 secs)

Y'day, i did a little faster 5K. Last month, my 5K running was 36+ minutes. During my y'day run, i completed 5K in 33 mins 6 sec and noticeably shaved off 3 minutes in a month. Another instance where i found that setting goals in life really helps. 

What amazed me was that, i was able to run at 11.25 kmph for almost 0.5 km and another 1km at 10.5kmph continuously (1.5 km). It is going to take a lot of training for building up speed but it is certainly doable without hurting myself.

Here is my latest run.

I m glad that i m clocking so much and getting better every day. Though it is not a goal now, i m thinking of running a 5K under 25 minutes (may be, i can do it within next 6 months and which means that i should run @ 12kmph for 25 minutes)

Running Performance - Improving

What i felt Last Saturday

On 21-July , i did a 20K run/walk. Ran for approximately 13K and walked for 7K without any perceived tiredness/strain. Unlike my first 21K run, i was able to continue with my usual life. There was no cramp or weird pain in the butt. Seems like my legs have become better. Still i feel there is a long way to go to cover 5K less than 30 minutes and 10K in about an hour (1 hour 10 mins). I m still hoping that i should cover 5K distance in less than 30 minutes in couple of months from now.

Today,

Coming my 5K performance. I feel that after a couple of days of rest followed by a longer run helps to improve the performance of 5K. Seems like my body and heart takes up more oxygen. My average speed is increasing every week. 

Here is my latest 5K performance (yesterday's run).

Good to see things improving.

My target is 5K in 29 mins 59 secs. Let me see how it goes from here. Within next 12 runs, i should have been trained to run 5K under 30 mins which should roughly take 3 weeks from now.

Thinking to run 10K under one hour is distant thought. I should first complete 5K, then move to 7K and then 10K (gradual). So, i think, it should take at least three months to run 10K under one hour.

Let us see how it goes

Another important thing when it comes to running is losing weight. I continue to shed my weight, which is good. I have chopped off 16 kilos and i still need to shed around 20 kilos (which should take at least 6 months).

Running is great way to chop off weight. I m glad that i m still consistent & injury free (yep, rests are more important than running).