Password change every two months

In my company, we have to change password every two months. The new password cannot be similar to any of the previous 24 passwords. i.e., It will not allow, if you just change one character in the previous password. It should contain uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special characters.

I can remember one very big password which has more than 30 characters with digits, lowercase/uppercase letters, special characters. I can make sure that, nobody sees the password while typing. I can also make sure that, I will not type this password except in office on my computer, and not anywhere else. But, that does not satisfy the security team in my company. But, I don't have that much memory power to remember a new password every two months.

So, what do I do? Write down the password some where.

Rule is followed, but the spirit is violated.

Dedication of the website

I would like to dedicate this website (blog.tnsatish.com) to five people who changed my life. It does not mean that, nobody else changed my life, or the help done by others is not significant. But, these five people have changed my life drastically, and I became a different person after interacting with them.

The five people who changed me in the chronological order of their first significant help.

Roja Rani Nori
She is a great friend to have. Her inspiration and encouragement is invaluable at all times.

Vineet Sawhney
I met him first in Mumbai. He was doing his dual degree at that time. He was the one who introduced me to Krishna Consciousness. He taught me many things in Krishna Consciousness, and cleared many doubts that I had. He used to come to my room regularly, and used to preach many things in spirituality. In retrospect, I feel that, I had not given enough respect to him.

Rupesh Nasre
He was my classmate in Mumbai, and a great friend to have. He taught me many things in technical and social activities. He was my guide in hacking, scripting and in many others. On 31st March 2002, few of my classmates were talking in general. Suddenly, somebody asked one question related to some data that we had got just an hour back. In my mind, I calculated that, it would take around 15 minutes for me to solve it by writing a program. But, rupesh is very intelligent, and he will take much less time, and I have to exaggerate him. So, I told them that rupesh can solve this problem in 15 seconds. He showed the result in 10 seconds. That was the first time that I could not exaggerate someone. That's when I realized that there are few people who are much more capable than MY IMAGINATION. Even now also, I cannot exaggerate him. When I came to know that, he was getting married to Meghana (his classmate in B.Tech and our junior in M.Tech), the first thing that came to my mind was, "Meghana is lucky".

Lord Krishna of ISKCON Radha Rasabihari Temple, Juhu, Mumbai
After my M.Tech, I worked in Mumbai for some time. At that time, I used to go to Juhu temple on all saturdays and sundays, morning and evening. Krishna is very beautiful in that temple, and I liked him very much. By visiting the temple regularly, I became very spiritual. That temple became my favorite temple, and Mumbai became my favorite place because of that temple. Had trilogy been there in Mumbai, I would have been in completely different track by now.

Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith was a Distinguished Engineer in Trilogy. After started working with him, I realized that I did not know how to write code eventhough I had been in the computers field for more than 6 years. I learned how to write code, and how to solve the problems. Working with him changed my attitude. I learned that the goal should be always, "Solve the root problem in the most efficient way". Everybody agrees to this, but not that many people apply this in their day to day problems. By working with him, I saw huge difference between others solving the root problem, and in the most efficient way, and he solving the same. In retrospect, if I had to chose between working with him for no salary, or working for a very good salary, I would have chosen working with him. (Fortunately, I got opportunity to work with him with a very good salary.)

Education Standards

Standard of EAMCET

Around Mid 90's, Every year, In Madhya Pradesh, somebody used to get the admission in Polytechnic (Engineering Diploma) with 3 or 4 marks in the entrance examination. I used to be surprised with that. In 1997, EAMCET (Engineering and Medical Common Entrace Test in Andhra Pradesh) model has been changed. EAMCET already had negative marks, and in that year, for the first time, they had introduced descriptive questions. They changed the model just few months before the exam. Everybody prepared with the previous model (objective questions), and suddenly they introduced descriptive questions. Because of this sudden change, many students could not answer many questions, and the average marks was very less. Many people got negative marks. Because of the reservations, few SC/ST students who got negative marks got admission. It means, for SC/ST students, if they write their hall ticket no, and return the paper, they would get the admission. The jokes like New Examination Pattern are not for exaggeration. They are facts.

Students who got negative marks got admissions in Engineering. Now, what should government do in this case? It removed the negative marking system and descriptive questions. Government gave explanation that, few SC/ST students who got negative marks got admission, and that's why they are removing the negative marks system. Since then, if any SC/ST student just answers one single option for all the question, he/she will get his/her choice of branch/place in Engineering.

Standard of IITs

IITs have very high standards, and it is very difficult to study for an ordinary student. Still, everyone wants to study there, irrespective of whether they have the capability to study or not. This year, 12 SC students were expelled from IIT Delhi, because of bad performance. They complained to Scheduled Cast Commission, and to the media. Media made it as a big issue, and started criticizing that IIT Delhi is discriminating students by caste. IIT Delhi had to review all the students and they had to take 2 SC students back by reducing the standards for termination.

Standard of Engineering

In Engineering Colleges in AP, there is detention system. A student can enter to third year of Engineering only if he/she completes all subjects in the first year, and similarly they can enter final year only after completing all the subjects in the third year. One main reason for this is, if a student does not have basics, then, they cannot understand advanced subjects. For example, if a student cannot write a C program, then they cannot understand NP-Complete problems.

For quite some time, students are fighting to abort this detention system. Few days back, one girl suicided because she was detained for not completing all the subjects in the first year. Now, the students are fighting more aggressively to abort the detention system. If another similar incident happens, then they will immediately abort the detention system.

We already have very low standards of education (except in IITs, NITs, and other premier colleges). If the standards are even reduced because some body was humilated, complained, or suicided, then what will be the future of the education?

Manmohan Singh's Defeat in Lok Sabha - 1999

If anybody wants to criticize democracy, the first example that they give is defeat of Dr.Manmohan Singh in 1999. I would like to give my analysis on that.

Manmohan Singh participated in direct elections only once. That was in 1999 from South Delhi. He lost to Vijay Kumar Malhotra (BJP). To understand, why Manmohan Singh lost that election, we have to analyze few things.

Vajpayee lost by one vote

Vajpayee became Prime Minister in 1998, and since he became PM, he started facing problems with Jayalalitha. After 13 months, Jayalalitha withdrew the support, and Vajpayee lost the vote of confidence by single vote. Even then also, the lost was unfair. I am not counting Saifuddin Soz, who voted against Vajpayee, by declining his party's whip. These days, many MPs are not following their parties whip. The unfair vote was from Orissa Chief Minister. Orissa CM Giridhar Gamang (Congress) did not resign from Loksabha eventhough he had been in CM position for few months. He voted against Vajpayee government. Had he not voted in that, both sides would have got equal votes, and Speaker would have supported the government (Because speaker was from TDP, which was supporting Vajpayee government). But, because of this invalid vote, he lost it.

In that 13 months, Vajpayee has done many good things including Nuclear Tests. He was not given full chance to serve the country. Now, the elections are held because of that one vote, and thanks to Jayalalitha, Congress, and Giridhar Gamang.

As a voter, whom should we vote? BJP's PM candidate was Vajpayee, and he is trying to do good service to India. The only other alternative was Congress, and it did not declare it's PM Candidate. There was also sympathy that, he lost the vote of confidence by unfair method. If somebody wants to see the Vajpayee as the PM, they have to defeat Manmohan Singh. If they want Manmohan Singh as the MP, then Vajpayee may get less majority, and may not become PM. If people in South Delhi wanted to see Vajpayee as the PM, then there is no other option other than defeating Manmohan Singh.

South Delhi - BJP's Fort

BJP was formed in 1980, and it's first participation in Loksabha was in 1984. In 1984, due to the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Congress had won in 411 seats. Because of the sympathy, all other parties lost badly at all places. BJP won only two seats in the entire country. As expected, it lost in South Delhi as well, and the contestant was Vijay Kumar Malhotra only. After that, Madan Lal Khurana (Ex-CM of Delhi) revived the party, and he worked tirelessly for Delhi. For his contribution, he got the title 'Dilli Ka Sher' (Lion of Delhi). Because of his efforts in Delhi, BJP never lost in South Delhi after 1984, and It became like a fort for BJP. From 1989 to 1998, there were four Loksabha elections, and one time BJP got a majority of 12%, and all other times, it got more than 20%. 20% majority is not a small majority. Nobody who wants to become an MP will contest from South Delhi from some other party. All politicians knew this. If a party is consistently winning from a place with a very good majority, they will put a good candidate, but they will not put someone who must become an MP. i.e., No Prime Minister Candidate will contest from Constituency like South Delhi from some other party. Manmohan Singh was asked to contest from South Delhi. What does it mean? I clearly understand that, Congress is not desperate to make him as an MP. But, they want to put some good candidate in South Delhi. So, they had chosen Manmohan Singh. If he had contested from a place where Congress is strong, or atleast other parties are not very strong, he would have won. But, Congress had chosen BJP's fort deliberately, and that's why Manmohan Singh lost. Even then Manmohan Singh lost by only 6%, which is much better than previous Congress contestants.

Computer Science and Electrical/Electronics - Which one is better?

Many students are opting for Electrical/Electronics over Computer Science. One reason for this is they think that, to become a Software Engineer, they need to know C++, Java, and .NET. They can learn those while studying Electrical/Electronics. So, they are opting for Electrical/Electronics over Computer Science. More than 90% of the students in normal colleges have this perception, and because of that they are choosing other branches.

However, this perception is not correct.

One reason for this is the low standards of education in normal Engineering Colleges. Not only the lecturers of normal colleges, even many software engineers could not give satisfactory explanation on why that perception is not correct. That's why many people are choosing Electrical/Electronics.

For example, How many software engineers felt that while writing Connection.setTransactionIsolation() requires understanding of all the Isolation levels like Read Committed, Repeatable Read, and Serializability? Unless they have the clear understanding of all these, they cannot choose the correct isolation level. They are core DBMS concepts, and are not taught in any institute which teaches Oracle, SQL Server etc. There are many concepts like this in Computer Science, which require while developing any reasonably big application.

In many colleges, they just teach the concepts, and not how it is used while writing code. It is very difficult to remember a concept for few years without understanding it's use. If the lecturers accompany the practical example for each concept, then the students will understand it better, and we get better software engineers.