Talking to him for an hour helped. It didnt remove the confusion that has been plaguing my mind for sometime. There still is no clarity. But just sitting opposite to the bespectacled gentleman with a more than gentle streak of ‘sacred ash’ was calming. Some new perspectives…more importantly a sounding board. I walked out of the lounge and into the Saturday Morning Bangalore chill – Pleasant. I made the trip across the city – I told myself … “Today I shall remain calm!” Maybe there is something chalked out for me too.

You clutched hard onto the cardboard box with a pizza within. The other hand held a tin of red sweetened water and white soft tissues. This was not the time to pick the oregano seasonings. The mind was too busy with several other things, chief among which was the conundrum about larger choices that could decide where you went. You wait there with no sense of urgency but with gloom written large across your face. You saw the crowd lunging at the two blazered men albeit in different circles; you were standing in one of them. You told yourself what was happening around you wasnt honest – largely because there was lacking an honesty in intent. Or was it just you crying sour grapes? Your mind shouts within its confines – An emphatic no! Would you do this to get your name on a white sheet of A4 paper pasted on that notice board? But it was more than that – it could mark a new path. But what journey would it be that were to be founded on such premises. You ignore the rush of new shirts joining the circle – you retreated. With head bowed low, you walked away – heart heavy with thoughts and emotions you didnt have the strength to fathom. You sat on that concrete ledge and finished the circular, cold flour with assorted vegetables with a generous overdose of onions and tomatoes. You managed to pick the seasoning this time. You walked back slow to the room. Head still held low and heart still heavy with all those feelings. You told yourself – atleast you werent dishonest! Lights off, sleep is a good healer of open wounds pierced deep within the recesses of your mind – atleast if only till you woke up. From other part of the block – the cacophony of noises coming continued – Trance music! You went forward and latched your door from inside…

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Dummy’s Guide to Url redirections…

Something is amiss with the way tinyUrl shortens its URLs

I tinyURL-ify this URL http://ibnlive.in.com/news/vijay-mallaya-buys-gandhi-items-f
or-18-mn/86943-3.html and I get this output http://tinyurl.com/dfqtql . For some reason, rather just out of curiosity I repeat the process and this time I get a new output http://tinyurl.com/78llkl

Something is amiss here.

So lets quickly try to guess how tinyurl works.

There are a class of functions called hashing functions, which is a m x n mapping, where m > n. So a hash operation is performed on an url and the output is stored in what is called a hash table.

You are taught in elementary classes in Data Structures that a hash table lookup is O(1) operation that is to say, it is largely independent of the number of entries.

Now we get back to the hash function, since m > n a hashing function is not one to one, rather is many to one.

Now because of this more than one url will hash on to one value. Therefore while storing the key(the hashed value) in your hash table you would also store the url, where you would want to redirect the user to.

Now lets see what would happen when someone lands at your page with an url like http://tinyurl.com/abcdef. Simple all you do is look up abcdef and the value you get is the url where you would redirect an user to.

Now lets see when an user comes to us with a request to tiny-ify an url http://longweblink.com.

You hash the url, and the value you get you look it up in the hash table( o(1) operation) and if the lookup fails you insert the key and url into the hash table and return the key to the user as the shortened url.

By doing this what are you ensuring? Simple. When two different users come to you with http://longweblink.com you are ensuring that you return the same shortened url to them. Therefore saving on duplicate links.

But what happens with tinyurl.com? when an user comes to tinyurl with the same http://longweblink.com, each time he gets a new shortened url. Every time. Yes a new url everytime.

Now lets see what kind of urls are shortened. My guess would be long urls of course… but basically interesting sites which you want to share with somebody else. And knowing the internet, there is a always a very high probability that more than one person finds a link interesting and usually this commonality numbers are pretty huge.

So doesnt it make sense for tinyurl.com to eliminate duplicates and assign shortened urls in the manner that we have learnt in this article this far?

I see only one reason…tinyurl.com wants to overstate numbers!!! if it has not done already, very soon you would see a proclamation saying - A billion urls shortened by tinyurl.com! Now that you have read this article you know what to do dont you? Yes, discount those figures!

Addendum: tinyurl.com has a nifty feature called ‘enable previews’ … please enable that. This would ensure that any redirection is first notified to you before its done. This is a MUST to prevent malice to your computer. An evil guy can tinyurlify http://thiswebsitewilldobadthingstoyourcomputer.com and he would get an url http://tinyurl.com/random and the unsuspecting you will click on it…hallelujah…

PS:
1. Tried the functioning of another url shortener http://is.gd and this site works good, no duplication - http://is.gd/mbfM
2. Tried the functioning of another url shortener http://snipurl.com and this site works good, no duplication - http://snipurl.com/dae7k
3. Tried the functioning of another url shortener http://bit.ly and this site works good, no duplication - http://bit.ly/2QBop

PS2: If you were asked to monetize the services of http://tinyurl.com how would you do so? Leave your comments.

PS3: Something definitely amiss…now two urls hashed to the same value at tinyurl.com!!!(That would nullify my accusation) This still doesnt explain http://tinyurl.com/dfqtql and http://tinyurl.com/78llkl

Maybe I should sleep. Good night

In the course of the two years that we spend here, we dedicate our time and efforts to several pursuits, some academic and several non academic. With each step that we take along this path, knowingly or unknowingly we move closer to our end objective of achieving our own personal goals. All along we are goaded and guided by several forces, some harsh and a few tender. Amongst these support systems are the infrastructure facilities available to us here within the campus. Probably when we look back at our days, as a snapshot from a period in time into the future – it would be these settings that would warm the recesses of our mind and seek to remind us of the beautiful place and the wonderful incidents that truly enriched two glorious years of our life here. Needless to say the theatre of most of these dreams would be the hostels!

Even as we go about doing our daily activities, we are fortunate to have the services of an extremely dedicated support staff – who meticulously go about their daily activities so that our essential services are available sans any disruption, minor or otherwise. Think of the folks who clear up all traces of midnight celebrations from the L^2, think of the folks who ensure that the corridors of our hostels remain clear from any debris from the previous night’s celebration. Think of the folks who you may never see, but who work in the background to ensure that life in hostel is as smooth as it can ever be. It’s a link between these folks and the student community that I seek to become as I humbly present myself as a candidate for the post of Hostel Secretary.

A man of vision creates castles and a man of action creates them on the ground. I would want to present myself as not someone who “promises the moon”, but someone who has the determination and zeal to see plans materialize into actions and into ground realities. I have had the privilege of working at close quarters with the present hostel secretary and I am aware of the nature of work that this position demands and the relationships I have built with folks at ground level – will undoubtedly hold me in good stead, if I am voted into this position of great responsibility.

I offer myself as candidate who is approachable to suggestions, reproaches, and means and alter means to fix a problem. For it’s in this magic of co-creation that a valuable two years of our hostel life exists. I humbly request you to do the needful, if you see promise in my words; and my promise is – I would strive my best to ensure that I don’t let you down.
Thanks,

Sathyanarayanan C

Buildings rise, buildings fall. Empires rise, empires fall. Towers rise, towers fall. When a giant tree falls, the earth below is bound to shake!

Today as I was sitting in the class, while changes in Indian Polity from 1950 to the present were being discussed; a thought came in to my mind.

We always take pride in saying that India is a country, where inspite of all the differences, inspite of all the dissent - our democracy has survived and we beam with pride, when we compare this with our neighbours who so often slip into the other side with anarchy, coups and military dictators!

People attribute several reasons to this thriving of democracy. Some say its the prudence of the constitution drafters, some say its the structure that gives it the inherent stability of proces, while some say that we are a nation of such vast differences that we cant have one single military dictator landing in the scene who can carry the entire nation with him/her.

But just to think of it - could this have been the reason? - India’s lead of the Non Alignment Movement(NAM). This ensured that we kept away from any real alignment of our country with the US of A or in the old days USSR. Therefore, our military establishment didnt get that might - which they would have got/assumed if there was any alignment of our military/foreign affairs strategy directly with that of the US. This would have given the generals greater power and we could have been part of plans - larger or otherwise to dethrow governments and replace them with mightier generals with covert(and sometimes not so very covert) Uncle Sam’s support!

When we were introduced to probability in Engineering College - I didnt find the whole thing intuitive. Skipped it. Would never attempt problems on probability. Preparation for CAT 2006-08 - Was more than happy to skip it, in favor of other problems. Today after Six Years, Probability has finally caught up with me - Quantitative MethodsI think this is what they mean, when they say Karma Catches up with you eventually.

The whole feeling of watching the night morph into dawn is something truly magical. Its not just the lights that change, not just the skyline which brightens but its the changes in emotions that makes the whole experience surreal. The Solitude of the football field, marked golden yellow by sodium vapour lamps, accentuating the earth’s orange. White goal posts, standing far apart from each other and the emptiness of the field. The field seems to tell you several journeys of its own. Further into the night, the gregariousness of conversations, of pockets of people and conversations. You drift further into the night, the boisterousness of gangs, of celebrations over alcohol, loud shouts, of merry chants and of the want to forget everything happening around you. The night progresses further, the rush to eat something before dawn catches up. The sky doesnt reveal it yet, but watch tells you that soon its going to come to an end. Walk further into the campus, and to the terrace; of guitar and fine music, of romantic strains and songs of longing and belonging with cold winds and a cloudy sky for company. The sky is already brightening up at the other end. Walk through continues, journey through lives, of new friends, old stories and older truths. Sleep seems a distant companion, its not something you seem to be pining for. You have smoked passively more in the one month here, than ever before. Mellowing of mood soon, its almost bright; the sky is clear blue in color. Dawn has arrived. Along with it the realization of the day ahead. The merriness of the night has vanished. You step outside and walk through the corridors. There is remains of chaos everywhere. Tattered plastics, Assortment of containers - tins, bottles, bottles, spilled liquids, spilled food, assorted smokers’ packs. The night must have been a good companion. You walk across the hostel blocks, back to the solitude of your room. You are fresh as ever. Today is going to be a long day, you tell yourself and proceed to power on your laptop. MSS’ divine voice fills the room, calling on the lord - the merciful to awaken, and bless the day - Suprabhatham. The Day has arrived.

You wait in the class, in between those lectures, and a pretty woman slides into the class. Tries to be inconspicuous, moves to the last row behind the class. Ofcourse the entire class cant help but notice her, but they continue, pretending to be busy in talks about the previous night at the hostel; of stories more inane; of how difficult it was to wake up, or stay awake.

The pretty woman is now sitting in the last row, hidden from the rest of the class. She doesn’t have the course material with her, she seems to be taking notes of something onto the small scribbling pad that she has brought along with her. Her eyes follows every speaker in the class in a mechanical manner, but you are sure she is not paying much heed to anything else. The scribblings on the pad seems to continue, you can make that from wherever you are seated.

Every speaker, after indulging in a few words in the class discussion looks back at her. She is still scribbling something onto the pad.

You tell yourself. This is counter to everything that education was supposed to be. The lady is marking class participation on that pad. 5 percent of your overall marks are going to be decided by the contents of that pad. You look away, and towards the white board.

PS1: CP=Class Participation
2: No, I dont think any of the guys have hit on the pretty lady so far. But I think its just a matter of time.