Saturday, July 4, 2009

Bandipur National Park






Bandipur National park is a part of the Nilgiri forest range. Its a rain forest and hence the forest cover is thick and beautiful throughout the year. Jungle Lodges (JLR) is a good resort to stay in Bandipur (and other parks in karnataka as well). The only problem is that the Mysore-ooty highway cuts across the park and the resort is also located along the highway. So one does not feel completely in the presence of nature during the time spent at the resort because of the constant sound of vehicles. The safari however was good. Once the safari jeep goes in to the jungle, it is a truly wild experience. There is a high density of wild elephants here. We also managed to spot gaurs, leopards, wild dogs, sambar deers, chitals, boars, serpent eagle, malabar squirrel , the brainfever bird and some other bird species as well. We were unlucky not to see a tiger but extremely lucky to see a pack of wild dogs hunt down a sambar deer right in front of the vehicle. JLR folks had also arranged for a nature walk. One can choose between this and going for a safari one more time. We made the mistake of opting for the nature walk. Normally this involves trekking a good distance in to the jungle and is a very good experience. But the batch of people we were clubbed with consisted of many children and many old people who wouldnt be able to walk the distance. Hence we were all taken to a small hill that was near the main road itself. We could see the roads and vehicles throughout the walk which was a big turn off. One also has to be careful not to get clubbed with loud people or very young kids in the safari vehicle when going to a safari since they might cause birds ,most of which are extremely sensitive, to fly away.

Even though the overall experience was commercial, it wasnt bad. The large number of visitors during the weekends results in a large number of safari vehicles (also from other resorts and the public ones)that go into the forest and will make it difficult to spot shy creatures like tigers and leopards. So ,to experience the best of bandipur, my advice would be to take a couple of days off work and visit it in the week days.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

GILMA Lecture Series- Guidelines to identifty whether a girl in Orkut is a figure or not

Guidelines to identifty whether a girl in Orkut is a figure or not

Introduction:

Often, we come across a girl's profile in orkut or any other social networking site and wonder if she is a figure or not. The answer is obvious if she has put her photo but that does not happen in most cases. So, many guys endup sending her a friend request , start chatting and discover very late that she is not. This is a terrible loss of productivity and manhours that could have very well been spent on other girls who are potential figures. It can be easily seen that this can be avoided only if the gilma had been able to identify whether the girl is a figure or not. So this paper presents methods to solve this problem.

Assumptions:

The "relationship status" field of the girl should be "single". There is no point even if the field is left empty.

Preliminary filtering:


Use this method if you have a large number of profiles in hand and you want to filter them into a smaller set so as to better focus your energies on that small set.

1) Reject if the profile picture is that of a baby. Sometimes the girl posts her own baby picture which might be cute, but dont be fooled.

2) Reject if the profile picture has flowers or of actresses.

3) Reject if the profile picture shows only the eyes of girl or any posture which hides her full face.

4) Reject completely if the profile picture is that of Emma Watson (hermione granger in Harry Potter Movie). This rule applies to small sets as well. Even though no logical explanation has been offered for this so far, statistical data reveals that any girl with a picture of emma watson will not be a figure with probability of 0.99.

5) If the profile pic shows a group of people where alteast one of them is not a figure, she is that one. So reject.

6) Reject if the "about me" section of the profile says "Be my friend to know more about me".


Profile classification techniques:

The following methods apply to a smaller set of profiles and takes relatively longer time to classify the profile. This has a score based approach where the readers are asked to compute the score of the profile based on the following rules. The profile is concluded to be that of a figure if the total score exceeds a certain threshold (say 35).

1) For rules 1 & 2, her scrapbook has to be readable by public. +3 score for every scrap in the last 50 scraps in her scrapbook which reads "Hi, didnt u study in X college (or working in Y company)", "Hi, do you want to be my friend" or "Why didnt u come to college ( or office)", "I heard u were sick. Are u better". Note, these scraps would have to be from guys only.

2) For every scrap from a guy which looks like the beginning of a conversation, see who started the conversation (based on timestamp of the scraps). +3 if the guy did it , -3 if the girl did it.

3) +5 for every testimonial written by another guy. -5 if the testimonial says "she is like my sister".

4) Rate of increase of number of friends in her friends list. (Difference between the number of friends on Day1 & Day15 / Number of frnds of Day1 ). Here, the readers may argue that the girl might have been sending out friend requests to a lot of guys. But if that was the case, her profile would have been rejected in preliminary filtering itself. Also, the ratio (rate of increase) is used instead of the actual increase to deal with both the following scenarios

a) Some figs like to see the number of ppl in their frnds list go up since they see it as a matter of prestige. So they will accept most requests. In this case the increase in a given time will be high.
b) Some figs do not accept frnd requests from strangers.These people will have a relatively lower number of people in their list and the rate of increase will also be slow.

Hence, taking the ratio gives equal weight to both the cases.

5) +5 if her friends are hot. Even if she did not turn out to be a figure, her contact might pay good benefits later on.

6) -4 if the girl had been found playing games such "best thing about the profile above", "+2 for girls -2 for boys"...etc. in any of the communities.

Conclusion:
The solutions presented here are merely guidelines based on a number of observations and has been found to work around 85% of the time. Note, there will always be certain exceptions.

Glossary:
figure - hot chick
gilma - Refer to http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=38596396

Notes:
More such posts from the gilma team can be found in http://gilma-lectures.blogspot.com/

Hilarious fortune cookies from Linux Mint Shell

*) You will have a long boring life.

*) You will be run over by a bus.

*) How do you keep a moron in suspense?

*) You will be incarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier.

*) Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

*) Don't plan any hasty moves. You'll be evicted soon anyway.

*) Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now).

*) You are not dead yet. But watch for further reports.

*) Excellent time to become a missing person.

*) Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.

*) You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today.

*) You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.

*) Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.

*) Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!

*) After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER!

*) Beware of Bigfoot!

*) You definitely intend to start living sometime soon.

*) Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.

*) Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder.

*) You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex.

*) Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate.

*) You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.

*) You are sick, twisted and perverted. I like that in a person.

*) Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.

*)Tonight you will pay the wages of sin; Don't forget to leave a tip.

Gems from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran

"We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us."

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" Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts."

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" Even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,

So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also."

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" People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?"

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"You talk only when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;"
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