Today's post is about a really strange dream I had last night. As most of you know (whether you wanted to or not), my dreams primarily consist of me playing observer to a scenario that defies reality, where I am not any of the characters directly involved. Another equally common dream is what's called a "lucid" dream, where I, although within my own dream world, am conscious to the fact, and am therefore able to exert influence on my dreams as they happen.
Last night's dream was neither of the two. It featured dream me, with sleeping me having no control in the matter. It started with a nested dream, where I was dreaming about something, and woke up into this present dream- followed by a scene fade to some sort of medical symposium on (I'm really not kidding) rabid chickens (yes, chickens with rabies). There were slides shown, and for someone who's never seen chickens with rabies (hell, I don't even know if chickens can get rabies), I had really graphic and somewhat grotesque images in my mind, as the narrator droned on about the various stages of degeneration that these chickens experience. I took 2 infected chickens in a coop home with me (the Gods only know why), and as I set down the coop in my apartment (which, strangely enough- wasn't my current apartment- and was gigantic in comparison), both chickens escaped.
In front of my relatively unwilling eyes, I saw one of the chickens peck the other one to death, and devour it as I sat and watched- scared out of my mind, yet strangely entranced. After its meal, the winning chicken eyed me expectantly- as if to indicate that the moment I put my feet down (I was sitting crosslegged in a slightly elevated couch) I was in for a world of pain.
It was at this point that sleeping me's mind registered that this was a stalemate- I wasn't about to put my feet on the ground, and that chicken wasn't going to be able to get up onto the couch to attack; resulting in the only logical conclusion to my dream, which was to end it and kick me awake.
This was by far the strangest and most disturbing dreams I've ever had, and I can only wonder why I would have such a graphically violent dream. If it were a result of TV, books or games, then I would wonder what on earth rabid chickens had to do with anything I've watched.
Iiiinteresting. Cheers, folks- Shriram out.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
"Great Google Interview" no monogatari
So today I had round 1 of my Google interview- and although round 2 was supposed to be at 11:00 pm, as of this writing, (11:35pm), the interviewer hasn't called.
Round 1 started as most interviews do; where are you, what are you studying, why exactly do you want to work in Google China? (Oh, St. Mary's College? I lived in Virginia, etc etc).
Then the dreaded interview question of "what is your current GPA?" (oh. shit.)
After explaining to him that my grades do not correctly represent my level of knowledge (which is true), we moved on to phase 2.
Then came the questions. I'd read some of the Google interview questions, but these came more or less out of the blue- here's question 1:
"Let's say you go to Lake Michigan. You have a boat, and you wish to estimate the number of fish within the whole lake. How would you do that?"
My response (after reeling at that question- since it was neither technical, nor behavioural, imo) was that I would take a sample area of water and net it off (to avoid migration), and make an educated guess based on the weighted average of several of such samples. Crude, perhaps, but would give you a relatively good answer.
Second question was technical, and I'm not sure if I got this right, considering that I was trying to code in my head, quickly enough that he didn't think I was an idiot. What I ended up with, may have been worse. The question was this: "If you had n steps, and you could only go up 1 or 2 at a time, what programming structure would allow you to calculate how many ways there are to go up those steps." I mulled it over in my mind, and said "nested for loops" only to try it with pen and paper, and find out that they didn't work. He appreciated my trying though, because he said (a smile creeping into his voice, much as a teacher might, should the student stumble upon something simple yet crucial) "okay, right, so what would work?" My guess was a for loop, using it to store a running total, while calculating combinations based on the # of 1 step and 2 step possibilities (ex. n 1 steps + 0 2 steps, n-1 1 steps + 1 2 steps, etc etc), which he seemed somewhat satisfied with. Asking "does that make sense?" may not have been a strong move on my part.
After that, he opened the floor to any questions I may have had, and after asking him the basics (what do you do, specifically, how big a team do you work for, what do interns do there), we bid our goodbyes, and he said that the recruiter would get back to me soon with my decision. We thanked each other for our time, and bid each other adieu.
After any phone interview, where my breathing becomes irregular (because I cannot convince myself to sit still on the phone, I was pacing around my apartment, stopping only to take notes on my piece of paper, particularly when he asked me questions), I took a few deep breaths, normalized my body, and started thinking: "how could this have been improved?"
Much to my dismay, the only two choices were (a) go back in time and take a CS major instead of CmpE, and (b), fly to Shanghai and interview in person, since occasionally, we had trouble hearing each other, and at least on my end, it sounded like he was in a bathroom, with that level of his own voice echoing, and it sounded like he put me on speakerphone, with a very sensitive microphone- since I could very often hear myself talking to him. This made dialogue difficult, but not impossible. Then again- maybe I'm just looking for excuses.
All in all though- I don't know if I impressed him or not- though I would be leaning towards no. The way I would have thought to impress him was something I simply could not deliver, and the fact that there were many classes he recommended that I'm taking between now and graduation, makes me feel as if I should pack up and head to Japan, work my ass off, and apply to Google China next year.
Just thought I'd update everyone- cheers, Shriram out.
Round 1 started as most interviews do; where are you, what are you studying, why exactly do you want to work in Google China? (Oh, St. Mary's College? I lived in Virginia, etc etc).
Then the dreaded interview question of "what is your current GPA?" (oh. shit.)
After explaining to him that my grades do not correctly represent my level of knowledge (which is true), we moved on to phase 2.
Then came the questions. I'd read some of the Google interview questions, but these came more or less out of the blue- here's question 1:
"Let's say you go to Lake Michigan. You have a boat, and you wish to estimate the number of fish within the whole lake. How would you do that?"
My response (after reeling at that question- since it was neither technical, nor behavioural, imo) was that I would take a sample area of water and net it off (to avoid migration), and make an educated guess based on the weighted average of several of such samples. Crude, perhaps, but would give you a relatively good answer.
Second question was technical, and I'm not sure if I got this right, considering that I was trying to code in my head, quickly enough that he didn't think I was an idiot. What I ended up with, may have been worse. The question was this: "If you had n steps, and you could only go up 1 or 2 at a time, what programming structure would allow you to calculate how many ways there are to go up those steps." I mulled it over in my mind, and said "nested for loops" only to try it with pen and paper, and find out that they didn't work. He appreciated my trying though, because he said (a smile creeping into his voice, much as a teacher might, should the student stumble upon something simple yet crucial) "okay, right, so what would work?" My guess was a for loop, using it to store a running total, while calculating combinations based on the # of 1 step and 2 step possibilities (ex. n 1 steps + 0 2 steps, n-1 1 steps + 1 2 steps, etc etc), which he seemed somewhat satisfied with. Asking "does that make sense?" may not have been a strong move on my part.
After that, he opened the floor to any questions I may have had, and after asking him the basics (what do you do, specifically, how big a team do you work for, what do interns do there), we bid our goodbyes, and he said that the recruiter would get back to me soon with my decision. We thanked each other for our time, and bid each other adieu.
After any phone interview, where my breathing becomes irregular (because I cannot convince myself to sit still on the phone, I was pacing around my apartment, stopping only to take notes on my piece of paper, particularly when he asked me questions), I took a few deep breaths, normalized my body, and started thinking: "how could this have been improved?"
Much to my dismay, the only two choices were (a) go back in time and take a CS major instead of CmpE, and (b), fly to Shanghai and interview in person, since occasionally, we had trouble hearing each other, and at least on my end, it sounded like he was in a bathroom, with that level of his own voice echoing, and it sounded like he put me on speakerphone, with a very sensitive microphone- since I could very often hear myself talking to him. This made dialogue difficult, but not impossible. Then again- maybe I'm just looking for excuses.
All in all though- I don't know if I impressed him or not- though I would be leaning towards no. The way I would have thought to impress him was something I simply could not deliver, and the fact that there were many classes he recommended that I'm taking between now and graduation, makes me feel as if I should pack up and head to Japan, work my ass off, and apply to Google China next year.
Just thought I'd update everyone- cheers, Shriram out.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Another semester has ended!! :D
Finally its the end of a semester again! I hope everyone's semester went well too! For me, this semester was full of new experiences and new challenges. The biggest challenge was working with the Boeing 737 and Boeing 727. Its a strange feeling to move up to the transport categories after alway working with General Aviation aircrafts for most of my college career. The biggest challenge was understanding all the systems on the aircraft and the danger that there is working with them. However, once I got used to it, it was great fun! :) The greatest accomplisment for me this semester working with the aircrafts was probably being at the controls and starting the engines on the Boeing 727 and also taxiing the 727! I have always wanted to do that ever since I was in this major and now, I finally did it! :D
The second big challege that I had this semester was the Purdue Grand Prix. I got together with a couple of friends and we entered a team in the Grand Prix. Throughout the whole 2 weeks of practice and qualifying we were one of the fastest karts out there! We even qualified in 11th for the race. However, during the race we were involved in some bad luck and was taken out of the race early... at the time when we were taken out, we were running in 5th position with only 40 laps out of the 160 laps completed... so in theory, if we werent hit and finish the race safely we could have easily gotten into the top 3 at least... but well... that is racing and these things happen. We will be joining the race again next year and hopefully next year everything will go as planned! :)
The second big challege that I had this semester was the Purdue Grand Prix. I got together with a couple of friends and we entered a team in the Grand Prix. Throughout the whole 2 weeks of practice and qualifying we were one of the fastest karts out there! We even qualified in 11th for the race. However, during the race we were involved in some bad luck and was taken out of the race early... at the time when we were taken out, we were running in 5th position with only 40 laps out of the 160 laps completed... so in theory, if we werent hit and finish the race safely we could have easily gotten into the top 3 at least... but well... that is racing and these things happen. We will be joining the race again next year and hopefully next year everything will go as planned! :)
This is a video of me at the controls taxiing
the 727! (A friend took the video for me) :D
btw, sorry about it being so low quality and
choppy... it was fine on my camera but once
uploaded it became choppy...
(Caution: watch your volume!!!)
Pictures of the Boeing 737 when we were
preparing to run the engines
Pictures of our kart when we were doing
some maintenance to it.
These are pictures taken during the
community day. It was raining and
the drivers got bored, so they decided
to run around the track with their
helmets and make kart noises... :P
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