tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197118402024-02-27T23:27:58.376-08:00An Engineer's Options & FuturesIn this blog, you can read the 'aha' moments in my rendezvous with computers, computing, and electronics, HOWTOs and whys that you could not get an answer from your textbook and then once in a while, a strange mixture of global economics.Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-80476153461405842192011-05-05T20:02:00.000-07:002011-05-05T20:42:33.673-07:00Bloom Filter in PythonBloom Filter is an extremely space-efficient probabilistic data structure. You can read more about it in its wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter. Bloom filter requires a very little storage space for a single key. An enormous amount of data can be stored in a small Bloom filter, if we can afford the risk of a very small percentage of false positive. Venti network storage Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-15884497660118925032011-04-12T23:49:00.000-07:002011-04-13T09:42:02.275-07:00Debugging Python on Emacs IDEI've tried a few IDEs for standalone Python development. But end of the day I came back to Emacs. I love Emacs because it is lightweight, I can pretty much do whatever I can with any other IDE and much more if I write some Lisp script.Here in this article, I'd just cover how to step through your standalone Python code and debug it using Emacs as the editor/IDE. First of all you have to install Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-20003098120660474812011-04-09T23:46:00.000-07:002011-04-09T23:57:31.679-07:00BrowserlingWith all your web apps and client side scripts, cross-browser testing is vital. Great were the roaring 90s when Internet Explorer was the only browser. But now the end user uses any browser, mostly either Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. Despite several standardizations, there is no guarantee that scripts in one browser would run in the other. And as an end-user, the message "this Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-89413487210092132282011-02-13T01:21:00.000-08:002011-02-13T01:50:14.700-08:00A Sneak-Peek into Linux Kernel - Chapter 4: Process Scheduling: Part-1So far, we have covered the process creation and termination in Linux. In this post and the next one, we will go through the process scheduling. The task scheduler or process scheduler or simply scheduler is the part of the kernel that makes the decision on which process can be executed at any given time, keeping in mind best utilization of the available resources. The scheduler in Linux is Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-41168720058130267602010-09-29T20:37:00.000-07:002010-09-29T21:04:44.387-07:00A Sneak-Peek into Linux Kernel - Chapter 3: Process TerminationFinally I found some time to get back to continuing this effort of writing about Linux kernel. This chapter is about how the process or task gets terminated.In Linux, a task is terminated by an exit() system call, made either explicitly by the task or implicitly when the main() function of the task ends. After the task is terminated, its parent has to be informed about the termination through Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-63148198368055818662010-09-01T18:25:00.000-07:002010-09-01T19:34:39.259-07:00A Sneak-Peek into Linux Kernel - Chapter 2: Process CreationIn the last chapter, we looked at the basics of process or task in Linux kernel and with a brief overview of struct task_struct. Now we are going to discuss how the process or task gets created.In Linux, a new task can be created using fork() system call. fork() call creates an almost exact copy of the parent process. The differences are in pid (unique), and parent pointer. It creates an exact Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-9361906599896525342010-08-22T12:34:00.000-07:002010-09-01T18:53:28.461-07:00A Sneak-Peek into Linux Kernel - Chapter 1: IntroductionThe source code of Linux Kernel was something that fascinated me eight years ago and I am still addicted and I follow changes that happen to it. I am planning to write a series of post to explore the source code of the kernel. I hope that this would help budding developers and fans to understand and change the Linux Kernel and improve the operating system. But if you do so, please remember that Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-53355505730146437312010-07-23T09:42:00.000-07:002010-07-23T10:45:20.877-07:00Virtual Machine 2.0Latvian programmer and blogger Peter Krumins (Pete) has recently announced that he along with James Halliday. I came to know about Pete a couple of years ago. As many of you might know, I am big fan of computing, and programming. Pete's blog is a must read for anybody with a similar interest. James Halliday is known for his work on node.js, an easy and practical way to build scalable network Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-65307210592450851012010-03-29T19:07:00.000-07:002010-03-29T19:43:04.369-07:00Night Fox of New JerseyThe movie Ocean's Twelve featured a very interesting character called "The Night Fox", a master thief enacted by the French leading man Vincent Cassel. In that movie, Cassel steals the Coronation Egg (in fact it's fake) by acrobatically avoiding the laser beams. In its previous version, "the Amazing Yen" uses his acrobatic skills to rob a casino. I thought such things are possible only in Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-10207008948619680332010-03-25T00:50:00.000-07:002010-03-25T00:59:01.314-07:00Job in 2018The unemployment numbers frustrate me and I feel we have to be like this for a long time. Oh.. Light at the end of the tunnel. A new study makes a convincing argument that by 2018, there will be overwhelming number of jobs open because of the mass retirement of baby boomers. And this is of course with no change in the immigration policy or labour law. Just eight more years! At that time, Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-77199354988443905742010-03-14T17:45:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:54:03.573-07:00Where is consumer electronics heading?Here is a graph by International Data Corp. that indicates where we are heading in the consumer electronics market. People want it small and want it to connect to the worldwide web!Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-85482301371207709052010-03-08T01:10:00.000-08:002010-03-08T01:56:26.912-08:00Picture = 1024 wordsMost of the time, I need a pictorial representation of call graphs to understand the profiler information with more clarity. Usually I use it to ensure that I am using the memory and CPU efficiently and which part of the code I need to optimize to get the best bang per buck. In my laptop, I use valgrind to generate the call graph and KCachegrind to study the visual representation of call graph. Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-51338006211926363212010-03-05T10:27:00.000-08:002010-03-05T13:57:30.674-08:00Bloom Box and Artificial PhotosynthesisA couple of weeks ago, CBS' 60 minutes focused on K.R. Sridhar's innovation, the Bloom Box, a small sized wireless power plant that can generate energy for your house. That's a form of clean energy. We can envision that in the next 10 years, all homes would supply electricity for themselves with the Bloom Box that I looked at as the miniature of a monolith (Tycho Magnetic Anomoly-4!).Now Dan Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-59722695574922034962010-03-02T10:09:00.000-08:002010-03-02T12:00:35.523-08:00Compiling the extra dimensionThree dimensional FPGA and three dimensional chips are creating a lot of buzz and may be the direction that VLSI design and reconfigurable computation are headed in. Why is it just a "may be"? There are a few start up companies that have come up with the 3D fabric and the interesting part is that the third dimension is not the same for everyone. In some architecture, the third dimension is the Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-53808711650142436892010-02-24T21:40:00.000-08:002010-02-24T21:49:24.935-08:00Cost of public school educationEarlier I have written a blogpost regarding the need for an educational reform citing the increasing number of college dropouts. In that, I have mentioned that the public universities give excellent education for an affordable cost. Recently Dr. Mark Perry of the University of Michigan has written an article comparing the per-capita money spent on public school education to the Harvard tuition Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-9358336059964982882010-02-22T16:09:00.000-08:002010-02-22T16:55:11.874-08:00Growth in computing powerI am running a fever, cough and cold that collaboratively make me tired at body and heart. The tiredness unfortunately keeps me away from blogging, as research, work, and study effectively occupy my reduced "active" time. When the going gets tough, I have to give priority to what I am paid for and what I pay for. Somehow I find sometime to write this, when my Python script is running in the Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-57563577037473570762010-02-04T19:11:00.000-08:002010-02-04T20:31:32.648-08:00Inequality and Income distribution of G20Recently I have read an extremely informative article in G20 website about the growth in personal income among the population of different G20 countries and there was a similar NBER working paper. The article is a little long, but it gives deep insight about poverty, inequality and income distribution. The research tracks the income growth since 1970. One interesting observation is that the G20 Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-69068986479272999152010-02-03T06:56:00.000-08:002010-02-03T07:21:20.359-08:003D-FPGA ReinventedThe concept of 3D chip has been coming and going. I have not seen many commercial chip that is 3D. But that may be the norms in future, as we find it difficult to integrate more transistors into a given area.If the area is small, stack it up. That's what was done in New York in the mid nineties. In future, at least in a distant future, that's what they would do in Atlanta and Phoenix. What Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-91538391582913724092010-02-01T18:00:00.000-08:002010-02-01T18:39:05.295-08:00Turned on by COTSonA few months ago, I wrote an article longing for the need of a multicore processor simulator - preferably one that is free. One of the reader of my blog have left a message about COTSon (I wonder why (s)he wanted to be anonymous). So I started reading more about it, starting with the white paper that was in SIGOPS. And I liked what I read.COTSon is the result of a collaborative effort by HP and Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-42549334966087052562010-01-02T00:16:00.000-08:002010-01-02T01:10:18.351-08:00Do you feel your boss is more incompetent than you are?In management, the level up to which someone would raise in the organizational ladder is governed by the Peter Principle, named after the Canadian psychologist Lawrence Peter. Consider a team of dozen employees out of which Alice is the most competent. So Alice gets promoted to the next job level. Now given the fact that Alice was the best among her contemporaries does not mean that she would be Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-27335630943640108232009-12-30T09:15:00.000-08:002009-12-30T15:54:24.377-08:00Arduino - Open Source Initiative of 2009For those who do not know, Arduino is an open-source, embedded prototyping platform. The single board microcontroller hardware with a bunch of sensors and embedded I/O controls. Hardware components contains an Atmel ATmega328 AVR microcontroller, a thermister, a crystal oscillator, etc, although it varies from board to board. It is an advanced RISC microcontroller with 32 x 8 registers and a Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-69404686768012913252009-12-25T21:32:00.000-08:002009-12-26T11:05:01.561-08:00Ubuntu's backward stepI have a laptop that runs Ubuntu Karmic (and OpenSolaris in multi-boot), and I recommend Ubuntu for all my friends who want to give Linux a shot. The most important reason is Ubuntu's ease of use. For the past several months, many people are shifting from Windows to open source OS because unlike past, Linux is as easy to use as Windows. I still remember those days of 9 CD Debian installation and Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-81156839800564821992009-10-30T10:54:00.001-07:002009-10-30T18:02:44.783-07:00Temporary SuspensionI have not been posting anything in my blog recently as many of you noticed and some of you mailed. The fact is that I am busy in two completely independent work. 1. Designing and implementing a completely new heuristic of logic minimization and 2. Physical layout design for a CMOS charge pump.Both these are interesting and consume most of my time. As a result, I cannot find time to post my viewsSundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-83152955658066787112009-10-02T10:26:00.000-07:002009-10-02T10:29:12.850-07:00The Daily Show on India's Moon MissionThis made me laugh out loud!The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cDeep Space Naanwww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorRon Paul InterviewSundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19711840.post-11396817204829096262009-09-16T07:48:00.000-07:002009-09-16T16:12:39.159-07:00Arrow of TimeLast month (Aug 09), the world of physics was enthralled by a mathematical work that led to an explanation to the arrow of time. The paper was by Lorenzo Maccone, one of the biggest names in quantum physics in this generation. The physicists in the universities (at least big universities) around the world have a hard copy of this paper in their hands, gearing themselves up for lunch time debates Sundar Srinivasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07558401207097133444noreply@blogger.com0