Random Musings

My recommendations for ECE undergrads.

Do you have the knack?

I am worried about my grade

This is a good source of information about life as a PhD student.

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D. (The same site offers several other insightful guides to the PhD process.)

Cargo Cult Science (Transcript of a talk by Richard Feynman on the importance of integrity and honesty when doing research)

Taking too long to finish your PhD thesis? This may be your ticket out. (For a second and third opinion.) (Don't misunderstand, I mean this as a joke not an endorsement. Stop looking for a “thesis formula”; talk more to your advisor and work harder.)

Can't bear the thought of leaving graduate school? Change your thesis topic. (This is also a joke.)

Don't want a sub-standard thesis? Heed ANSI/NISO Z39.18. (Ditto.)

— Charles Kettering. (This is not a joke.)

Google Translate for those of us who are language limited. (Try the Android App version in conversation mode.)

Know what you are getting yourself into (Google Safe Browsing site status)

The Wayback Machine

Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture at Morgan and Claypool (free access from CMU subnet; an excellent entry point to a growing list of computer architecture topics.)

“A hundred prisoners are each locked in a room with three pirates, one of whom will walk the plank in the morning. Each prisoner has 10 bottles of wine, one of which has been poisoned; and each pirate has 12 coins, one of which is counterfeit and weighs either more or less than a genuine coin. In the room is a single switch, which the prisoner may either leave as it is, or flip. Before being led into the rooms, the prisoners are all made to wear either a red hat or a blue hat; they can see all the other prisoners' hats, but not their own. Meanwhile, a six-digit prime number of monkeys multiply until their digits reverse, then all have to get across a river using a canoe that can hold at most two monkeys at a time. But half the monkeys always lie and the other half always tell the truth. Given that the Nth prisoner knows that one of the monkeys doesn't know that a pirate doesn't know the product of two numbers between 1 and 100 without knowing that the N+1th prisoner has flipped the switch in his room or not after having determined which bottle of wine was poisoned and what colour his hat is, what is the solution to this puzzle?” – heard on Car Talk

Patent trolls beware (Too bad it wasn't allowed.)