A Day In The Life Of…

I woke up when my alarm rang at 7.30 am in the morning. Without even having to look at the time and the cellphone I was able to hit the right spot on the (touch)screen to switch off the ringing. Then again it started at 7.31 am and I followed the routine of switching it off. This incident continued two more times at precisely 7.34 am and 7.35 am when I decided that it was too early to wake up and I needed more sleep before going to the uni and stare blankly at hundreds of lines of C code. So I set an alarm for 8.30 am that I conveniently stopped again and finally woke up at 10!

It doesn’t take long for me to get out of the house when I’m out of the bed. A quick shower and casual dressing takes no more than 10 minutes. Taking the bus at this time of the day is a good option which I usually exercise and it takes about 30 minutes on average to get to the uni.

Breakfast is something I never cared about. A cup of coffee on the way to my place in the lab is essential to provide a kick. Today I was in the lab at about 1030 and the place was deserted . No one in the lab, but that wasn’t unexpected. With most of the undergrad courses coming to an end the place is likely to be haunted in few weeks!

Another hour went by in gathering the happenings around the world before I finally decided to get started on some work.

I realized that not getting out of bed despite having sufficient sleep was caused by the boredom I was expecting in the lab. I’ve been toying with the SD card for a couple of days trying to make it talk to my micrcontroller….

Time went by quickly as I continued playing with the options and then when suddenly I solved one of my many problems I decided to celebrate the moment with a quick break. Just then a friend walked in and then we talked for an hour or so. I’m still unsure who’s the more talkative one. By this time a couple of guys had checked in to the lab but that’s more or less the maximum strength of people I’m going to witness around me for the coming months.

I had lunch and then wanted to sleep. What else can happen to you in a peaceful and quiet room? The room is so peaceful that a number of times the lights go off because the automatic sensors detect no activity for some minutes and hence switch the lights off even when I’m sitting there. (So bloody annoying!!)

Anyway, the next few minutes were spent on Youtube. This again is due to the large and lovely monitors in the lab and high speed internet

Just when I accumulated enough guilt I was ready to hop back to work. I don’t know how the next few hours went by but I kept on (trying to) work until 8pm when I finally decided to end the day.

It is absolutely annoying again to walk out after 8pm still to find the sun shining!! Raat kab hogi?? Its bright almost until 10pm (WTF?)

It wasn’t a bad day, I did manage to proceed in my problem solving activity. However it prompted me to make a plan, just to keep things in check. So tonight I will sit down attempting to plan my week ahead.

Meanwhile, I am trying to keep a track of my project online at project.anasimtiaz.com. It is not detailed at the moment, but that is probably the place where the more technical details of the project will be posted. Do have a look and let me know if you find it a little interesting.

Heavy Price Tag of Pak Players in IPL-3

Pakistani players were prevented from playing in the IPL this year after the relations between the two neighbours were soured in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. Earlier, the Indian cricket team refused to tour Pakistan after their government interfered to cancel the tour. Note that this was not due to security reasons, but because of pure politics. In response, Pakistan refused to allow its players to play in India amid security fears of they being attacked by angry Indians. This move by the government was probably a tit-for-tat, and was perceived in the rest of the world as a personal loss for Pakistan. Some players were unhappy to be denied the opportunity of making quick money, but the decision was made. Soon after, amid security concerns, the IPL was moved to South Africa and the government of Pakistan cleared the players to take the field in SA. But it was too late, Lalit Modi, the magician refused to take in any Pakistani players – there were 11 contracted at that time. Immediately, the franchises cancelled the contracts of 7 of them, while 4 remain suspended. The IPL then went ahead with all fanfare, music, dirty dancing and least of all, cricket.

Now that, out of the blue, Pakistan has produced some astonishing T20 stars, the IPL franchises have already started showing interest in them. The price tag for Pakistani players will be much much highers this time, for the IPL to be commenced in March. Younis Khan’s franchise wanted him back but the captain has already quit the T20s while they are keen to have Akmal and Tanvir back too – suddenly very keen!

Afridi and Gul will be the most expensive, while Razzaq is a hot commodity as well.

All these are of course dependent on the relations between India and Pakistan. The PCB currently isn’t enjoying friendly ties with the BCCI over the World Cup issue but that can change within days.

All said, I do believe that IPL is in fact low quality fun, non-serious cricket. After watching some IPL and the T20 WC immediately, the differences in the quality of cricket were apparent.

Some believe that cricket should take a football-like approach and have more league games. Personally, I’m more inclined towards having games between countries. It is more competitive and the stakes are much higher – if money is to be discounted.

The Champions!

With no recent cricketing activity of international level at home, no participation in the Indian Premier Profits League, on the back of criticism from their own chief selector and having being ruled out whatsoever to make it to the semis, Pakistan today showed the world what it is capable of. The very fact that Pakistan stamped its presence in two finals in a row in itself speaks volumes of the cricketing talent of the country. Winning one of them and losing the other by mere five runs just adds to it. The unearthing of a 17-year old rookie, who hardly had any flesh on his body, and his resounding success against the likes of Graeme Smith and Tilkaratne Dilshan in crunch games is again a feature to be found in Team Pakistan. At this time, it is also worthwhile to mention the coach Intikhab Alam who was also responsible for the team back in 1992 when the boys brought the trophy home!

Before the start of tournament, when everyone wrote off Pakistan, there was one man still claiming Pakistan to be the favourites – hats off to Wasim Akram!

To all those who think that Pakistan’s win is merely a fluke, then remember that flukes are just one-off. This is some serious progress! Beating the two favourites of the tournament in the semi final and the final can not be a fluke. Also, both wins are quite convincing!

It is a time to celebrate and thank Almighty Allah for giving the nation something to cheer about.

It is surprising to see how a nation stuck in a foreign war and isolation can come out so strong. Again, this shows the character of the people despite the junk given to us by the so-called leaders.

Well done Team Pakistan!

If we just analyse this tournament for a minute, the turning point for me was the return of Abdul Razzaq. He provided stability in the team – his sheer presence made an effect and expectations rose. He didn’t disappoint either, taking three crucial wickets with the new ball in the final. His return also freed up Afridi, who was locked in at number 6 for some late acceleration. That task was given to Razzaq (was never really required in the end), while Afridi was promoted to have a ball. Afridi himself showed a surprising transformation in to a mature batsmen and for me, after YK’s retirement from T20, Afridi deserves to wear the captaincy hat. I’ve seen him doing well in the domestic T20s as a captain. Also, I’d love to see Afridi in Test matches!

Umar Gul topped the wickets table yet again – and that just shows the sheer quality of bowling talent.

This success will go a long way and hopefully bring back those people to cricket who left in disappointment.

Finally, the moment of the tournament for me was when Younis Khan went berserk on Mohd. Aamir when he failed to return to the stumps to collect Fawad Alam’s throw – which incidentally hit the stumps directly. Despite getting the wicket and sealing the match, Younis had more on his mind. Clearly, he was aiming much higher. I was not a fan of YK’s captaincy, but I must admit he has impressed me (a little ).

Good luck to Team Pakistan for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka, and all the future series!

The Balancing Act

I have always wondered how people are able to manage their life – work, home, friends, family, etc. I think its just impossible. Those who say they have a balance are lying, or at least that is what I believe. Just imagine working in an office (or in university) and you’re stuck at some point. How can you go back home and not think about work while watching TV, or while having dinner, or maybe while sitting in the toilet or taking a shower? How can you even manage to go out and just not think about your earlier problems?

Personally, I have never managed to do it. I almost envy people who have this ability to swing their thoughts (if they really do) like they have some switch in their brains which they can control and turn off while leaving work. Its almost unbelievable. Even since my childhood, academia has remained on top of my priority list and nothing else got enough attention. I come across as a good manager to people, but I think I suck in this game of balancing when non-academic things come up. This is one reason my social life sucks, the other being my love for loneliness. The love for loneliness is another consequence of the mind being stuck on some work and these lonely sessions are needed to find the solutions.

An incident that I fondly remember that occured in 2002 probably when I was doing A-levels pretty much summarises what I’m trying to say. I was stuck on some calculus question and then just had to leave it there to go and attend the Isha congregational prayer. On the way I kept thinking about that particular problem and the way of solving it. The thought never left me during the prayers and I came up with something in the middle of prayers (sadly, the concentration on prayer was very low). I couldn’t wait for the imam to end it and go back home and try out my new idea. It did turn out to be the solution, but the point of interest here is the lack of ability to come out of that domain.

In Pakistan, the four years that I spent, being the only man in house and also the only driver I was responsible for many things apart from my own studies. That, in hindsight, did help me to understand this art of balancing to an extent but as soon as I left that phase, I immediately returned to the old routine of being stuck at something.

Obviously, I’m normal when there is no such problem

So can someone explain how exactly do people with problems manage to maintain a nice balance in their lives?

Cutting the Ribbon (and the flashing of LED)

I was rightly furious when I found that a courier that I was anxiously waiting for was not delivered to me because apparently I wasn’t home when a man rang my doorbell to deliver the package. I was furious because I was in fact at home and it was impossible to miss the doorbell. The courier company should have left a note in my mailbox, which was not to be found anywhere. I called them up asking for the delivery which they promised to deliver ‘again’ on the next working day. Since I made this call on Friday, I was not in a mood to wait for two days and asked for self-collection option. Thankfully, I was able to get my package early Saturday morning. The package is shown in the picture below.

Slowly, I unpacked the box removing most of rubbish filled in to the stuff the box and finally took out the box I was looking for.

This is, as you can see, something to do with some Microcontrollers. This in fact is the development kit on which I will be working during the course of my project. It contains the debugger/programmer for the 100-pin MSP430F5xx series microcontroller which are ultra-low power, very small, and highly efficient microcontrollers from Texas Instruments.

The package came with two microcontrollers and the two pictures below can give you a good idea of the size.

Now, I kept on admiring the little chip for few minutes, but the fun part is to start playing with it. Programming is fun, and getting a desired output from a program gives a very satisfying feeling. I remember writing my Hello World program. Almost all software programming tutorials begin with a Hello World program. In the world of hardware flashing a LED is similar to Hello World in software. I also remember flashing the LED when I used a microcontroller for the first time. The remarkable thing here is that the feeling and excitement never dies down. I felt almost the same thing when I wrote Symbian Hello World few months ago, compared to what I felt when I wrote my first ever Hello World in C.

So, the first task here in this MSP430 MCU was to flash an LED. I felt excited having been able to do that successfully, after a number of failed attempts (they never work the first time!!). Out of excitement, I recorded this moment of excitement. Here is a video of the inaugration of my MSP430 MCU, and my project as well.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0IZvBJKlHE