Of Calvin, Hobbes and People

Bill Watterson. Even his mere name sends electric impulses through my body, for the genius behind Calvin & Hobbes is someone I've idolized my entire life. His comic strips have inspired awe in me, they have ignited every feeling there is in this world inside me. Primarily humorous, sometimes these little comic strips had such deep meanings hidden within, they would wipe you off their feet with the imaginative content inside them. Sometimes I ponder on how the imagination of Bill himself could be so expansive, so wondrously vast, as to accommodate a six-year old's point of view of the world, and perhaps his whole mindset, fully.
Calvin, that six-year-old, was what made this comic strip special. The whole of this strip was about the world of imagination Calvin had in his mind. What I saw in Calvin was a version of myself. It made me think about how the world molds you into thinking that imagination is a stupid thing to have, how a set of rules and constraints is what governs this universe, and we can't do anything to change it. And then, there's the famous quote, "There's always hope." I'd very much like to change that to "There's always imagination." Above all the things that Calvin and Hobbes has shown me, of all the feelings that it has made me feel, the most important and significant thing that it has taught me is that being imaginative is always good.
Being a self-proclaimed information addict, I wouldn't mind if the whole of imgur or Reddit were to be filled with Calvin and Hobbes strips only. Of all the things Calvin and Hobbes is to me, the only regret I have is that the strip didn't last longer. 10 mere years. Why would someone want to end this stroke of artistic genius want to end this masterpiece, just after 10 years of its publication.
But looking at the bright side, it did last 10 years, as long as the whole series of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
At least it didn't end up being a comic strip version of Firefly.

Code, code, beautiful code

This is supposed to be some code I'm working. It makes me look smart.

I'm a nerd. I'm a complete nerd.  I love computers. I love gadgets. I love the tiny little lights that blink every time I leave my laptop on the whole night. It soothes me so.

I'm a fan of the doge meme.

But seriously, I simply love computers. If I could, I would spend my whole life on my computer, doing nothing but watch cats on the Internet and code. Whenever I think about coding, it's right up there on my priority list along with watching cats on the Internet. Whenever I think about coding, my mind swells with excitement at the very thought of looking at pieces of text that mean nothing to some people, and so much to others. Yes, it excites me, and I'm proud of it.

But then again, I don't know code that well. I mean, I don't know half the stuff most intermediate programmers know. I'm somewhat of a between-novice-and-intermediate-coder type of guy. I know all the basics, and I know some beyond it, but that's where I'm limited to. Yes, I know how to use the documentations of languages and all that. My weak point is that I don't know what to do with a piece of code by just looking at normal documentations. I need examples to learn more. This whole "learning through examples" method isn't necessarily a bad thing. But then, there comes a time when there just aren't examples to support this learning process. And then, I have to use my brain because I have one, and I can assure you it's very usable*adjusts bowtie*. This is one of the few joys of coding,
the "try-it-yourself" part. You try and try and try and try until you get the solution (that, or just be lazy and go over to the guys at stackoverflow.com for an answer). I personally believe one can never be a good programmer until one goes through this very phase, and that is why, I postpone the use of  World Wide Web resources until the very last, whenever I'm coding.

Almost every programmer can relate to the substantial amount of time it takes to debug a program. As a programmer, I've almost never got my code on the first try (except on exams, I don't know what happens to me then, I think I get into a hyper-adrenaline-brainy mode at those times). And that's when the all-hail-debug king comes in. And god, does debugging make our life easier. Why, coders would be probably regarded as an elitist group if it was not for debuggers, because it would undoubtedly be a god-knows-how-tedious task to individually look at lines of code and figure out if there were errors in each one of those lines. Whoever invented the concept of debuggers, I bow down in front of you and offer you my gratitude. Seriously, those are awesome.

One thing almost every programmer knows that normal people don't is that people underestimate how powerful computers are. We programmers know that computers have solved problems that people would take (insert a HUGE number) years to solve. Basically, we are saying that whenever a Terminator-style apocalypse is going to happen, we coders can empathize the machines. And they would not kill us. Which is exactly why I learnt to code. That is exactly why coding is beautiful. Now, let me take a moment and plagiarize copyrighted content by Vladimir Nabokov, saying "Ah, coding, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Ko-deeng." (For those don't have a clue what I'm talking about, look up "Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov quotes" on Google) . And then, let me take a moment to emphasize how hard it is to conclude a blog post. It is VERY hard. Which is why I don't want to go through all the trouble, and precisely why I will conclude this post very very abruptly.

-Mohit

The world cellphone market: Smartphones taking over feature phones?

 Back in  2011, smartphone sales finally overtook feature phones in the cellphone market in the United States. Now, it seems that this milestone has finally been achieved on a global level.
According to figures by Gartner.com, smartphone sales have grew 46.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013, where, out of a total 435 million mobile phones sold, about 225 million smartphones, were sold, whereas the sales of feature phones were limited to 210 million, declining 21 percent from last year. This milestone is a clear sign that the smartphone revolution has reached beyond the US and Europe, most prominently up to Latin America, and South Asia.
Of course, feature phones are still quite popular in developing countries, where having a cellphone is still more of a luxury than a mere commodity, and where battery life and network reliabilities are far more important to people than any other factors. But still, with low end smartphones running low-end OSes like the Bada OS for Samsung devices, Nokia's Asha series smartphones and even low-end Android handsets being unveiled in developing markets, it'll be interesting to see how feature phones will hold up against smartphones.
With the marginal line between the selling prices of feature phones and the selling prices of low-end smartphones shrinking rapidly, another question arises: Is it wiser to buy a low-end smartphone rather than a reasonably good feature phone?
Let's look at the side that answers to this question with a huge "YES!" first. Whenever you talk about a smartphone versus a regular run-of-the-mill cellphone, what is the biggest difference we will see? Undoubtedly it is going to be the sheer number of applications available on the smartphone. Want to get directions? There's an app for that. Want to know which peak that is on the horizon? There's an app for that. Want to ride a shark? There isn't an app for that right now, but there might even be one for that in the near future! This is one of the very defining features that most cellphone-turned-smartphone users tend to switch to a smartphone for. In all actuality, the whole difference between a smartphone and a feature phone is the framework it runs, and the range of applications provided on that very framework. And in this very department, smartphones take it away by a long, long mile.

But wait! We are talking about the low-end smartphones here! To be perfectly honest, the low-end smartphones running not-very-popular-OSes aren't any better than a regular feature phone!(As of now, of course.) Why so? you may ask. And I'll tell you why so. Right now, these not-very-popular OSes are in the just-developing phase of their lives. What does this mean? Why, this means a limited number of apps, and a limited number of handsets running this OS! And you wouldn't want to spend your hard-earned money on a "smartphone" which has even worse features and applications than a regular feature phone, would you?
Well, we've talked about the young, juvenile OSes, but what about a little better, more mature OSes? (Looking at you, Android.) To be fair, low-end devices don't really play along nicely with these mobile Operating Systems. Even on high end devices, we sometimes see a stutter here, some lag there. On low-end devices, these stutters become regular ordeals, and regular screen freezing and crashing, not to mention the limitation on the number of applications, thanks to the below-par mobile phone specifications, makes the whole journey a very bumpy ride. We would be better of using a smoothly-running feature phone rather than something like this.
When it comes down to it, smartphones and feature phones are after all, cellphones, and the whole idea of a cellphone is to provide us with communication, which both of these conflicting sides accomplish. It is just up to us to decide whether we want a bucket load of extra features with a price tag, or plain old communication on a budget.

The Dilemma of International College Education

As a high school student from a not-so-developed part of the world, every time someone asks me where I am going to pursue my college education, instantaneously, my mind thinks about the USA. I'm sure most international students can easily relate to me, and some people may ask- why so? The simple truth is that the USA is easily one of the best destinations for international students, there is, and it is even, arguably, the best.
Now, we come to the point of the colleges within the United States. Out of 4,495 eligible, undergraduate degree-granting educational institutions, a student has to choose one. This seems, undoubtedly, like a very very daunting task, to say the very least. But at the same time, there are a thousand factors to consider for this very task of discerning where to study, ranging from the most salient details, to the minutest. The biggest hurdle, though, for most international students, is their educational funding.
When it comes to the economics of college studies, all international studies go after the same thing, scholarships. Now, scholarships aren't things that colleges give if you just approach them and tell them that you're a good student. Substantial concrete evidence that a student is good enough for a scholarship is without doubt needed for each and every college. That's where standardized tests like the ACT or the SAT come in. The most popular standardized test for post-high-school students, the SAT, carried out by the Collegeboard Inc. is taken by almost a million and half students every year (according to Collegeboard statistics from 2006), and this number is sure to have risen to at least 2 million by now. Now, what is a good score in these standardized tests? Typically, a score of 2100 or above in the SAT and a score of 32 or above in the ACT is considered a "good" score by scholarship standards? (I don't know if that's even a phrase.) You are eligible to get a good enough scholarship, i.e. academic, once you get a score close to this. Basically, what we are saying is that, your standardized test score is going to help narrow down drastically the choices you have for your college education.
Now, we get on to the talk of the majors you want to go with. Usually, if you can get into a large university, the subjects and majors won't be a very big issue, but if you can get into one of the smaller colleges, you have to decide which field you want to go into, beforehand. Liberal arts, Science, Law, Medicine, and an array of other choices are there for you to get into. Of course, large scale universities have their own separate colleges within their premises, so none of this applies to them, but if you're looking for a smaller college, you've got a chance to cut down on the options available.
I, myself, am a very confused person. Of course, I am the average international student, who dreams of going to one of those large universities, those that offer the best services in the nation, but probably doesn't have the academic excellence to get in. But then, I'll try, I'll apply, and who knows, I might just get in. But if I don't, I'll have a lot of other colleges I'll be applying to as well, because I was already prepared for what would come. And I'd probably get into a good enough college. And that's what most average international students are going to do. Whatever we do, all international undergraduate students are faced with this very dilemma of which college to go to. And in the end, it all comes down to where fate leads us. Either that, or we make our own fate. So, yeah. Pretty much all there is to it.
- Mohit