When HSBC came calling...

About a week ago I posted a blog entry about how my HSBC InvestDirect account suddenly showed a balance of £66,000 (approx).
Well yesterday (11th October 2006) HSBC came calling to my humble blog. Not just once or twice but more than six times! In fact not only HSBC but also some bank from New York came to have a look at my blog.
The first hit came from HSBC Banking and Financial Services in Pune, India. Rest of the hits were from HSBC Plc, London, England.

The MAIN thing was all the hits, as you can see below, were directly on the post about the £66,000!

The Details of the Visit:

The First Hit


Details of the other Hits






I wonder what they are up to! :D

Marriage is a Multi-objective Problem

Bit of Theory
A multi-objective problem (MOP) is a problem which can be de-composed into multiple objectives that have to be satisfied to solve it. Often all the objectives cannot be met with the same degree of success since they may oppose each other. Therefore there exists a 'trade-off' between these objectives.

A classic trade-off situation is when you are packing for a trip. Assuming you don't want to pay through your nose for extra allowance (and you don't have an army of pack mules to carry your luggage) you will have finite space in which to put everything.
So the trade-off comes with respect to what you put into that finite space. Do you put in more night-clothes or more casual wear? Since the space is finite if you put
in more night-clothes you will have less space for casuals.

There is usually no single solution to a MOP. Instead the problem solver usually takes a look at a set of solutions (i.e. possible trade-offs) and based on their expert knowledge, desires and preferences a single solution is picked out from the set of solutions.

Looking at MARRIAGE from a multi-objective point of view we can figure out what kind of boys/girls would be preferred. I simplified the problem by taking just three main factors which are most commonly looked at while finding a mate (in India atleast).
These factors are:
- Money (income of the boy/girl or family wealth)
- Family (the background of the family)
- Looks (of the boy/girl)

The trade-off between each of these factors is highly dynamic (for example good looks might not always come from a good family and so on). Therefore we cannot do a clear analysis of the situation. But we can show the various options available and how each type of solution can be put into a class (of boys/girls).

Green dots
represent the best solutions within the normal class of boys and girls.
Fairly NORMAL demand for this type.

Grey dots
represent the non-mainstream class.
Demand for this type cannot be defined.

Red dots are LOSERS!
LOW demand for this type.

Blue dots are GODS/GODESSES (the Ideal class)
EVERYONE wants to marry one of these!



Note: Charts shown above were made by me and not copied from anywhere.

So WHICH CLASS do you belong to? :D

OOO and OOAD

OOO = Object Oriented Organization (of code).
OOAD = Object Oriented Analysis and Design (of a system).

Code rushes through my head when I hear people talking about various software projects.. that is the wrong way to think.. if you can think DESIGN before you think CODE that means you are a top class computer engineer (or programmer).

But professional design is a tediuous and often time consuming activity which is as important as it is difficult to do well!

Most small projects or dedicated systems, in my experience, are designed on the basis of 'object oriented organization' rather than full blown OOAD (which involves higher level elements such as Design Patterns).
The system is just represented as a set of interacting classes or objects.
This can be very effective, reducing design times as well as making sure most of the good design features are present in the result. But this requires an implicit understanding of what is good OO and what is bad OO!

If you find yourself stringing together classes like a garland one after the other then you are surely doing something mad.. and trust me.. pretty soon that garland is going to start stinking!

The basis of good OO design is how to keep the interfaces of the classes clean and less prone to change and the number of classes themselves to as few (and thus efficient use of code) as possible. Thus it becomes VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT to understand and keep in your mind AT ALL TIMES the concepts of cohesion and coupling whether you are doing OOO (Object Oriented Organization of your code) or full fledged OOAD.

For those who don't know about Cohesion (Coh.) and Coupling (Cup.):
Coh. means how well organised the code is within a class... how well the code of the class works together to fulfill the functionality of the class. If a class is really bulky and requires access to external code then we say that Coh. is low.

Cup. means the number of connections a class has with other classes.

Usually the best design practice is to INCREASE COHESION and DECREASE COUPLING. This ensures classes remain as stand-alone and re-usable as possible as well as decreasing the 'stringing' effect of dealing with a highly connected set of classes.

The common trick for reducing Coupling is, if you find that two classes have a lot of connections between them, try and merge the two classes together or try and shift the functionality from one class to the other (you can even try merging the functionality from both classes into a third class!).
To reduce cohesion you need to concentrate on the first level analysis of the problem (high level requirements). Often a re-analysis of the problem can lead to a more efficient Class/Object based Design.

MY PhD!

Talking about my PhD with my cousin sis...

XYZ: accha which topics come under ur research......
Kyuzo: earth/sky/water/wind/love/girls/electronics/computers/AI
XYZ: wt is AI....???
XYZ: yaa i knw......
XYZ: ok artificial intelligence'.............???
Kyuzo: wow u smart
XYZ: hmm dont u have ur original intelligence......????
Kyuzo: nope woh i gave to charity

From my mobile...

Making this post from my mobile...

Digging my own grave... Miss A!

Recently me and Vibhore were talking about Miss A and this is how the conversation went..

Vibhore: Any news of Miss A?

Azahar: Yes one interesting incident - blah blah blah (the incident!)

Vibhore: guess u r making ur own grave with your own hands, she is not looking very keen i must confess

Azahar: i might be digging my own grave but i will make sure i dont enter it on my own

Digging my own grave is my favourite past-time... the thrill of being so close to complete disaster, flying by the seat of my pants... its just AMAZING!

An unrelated topic...
Diwali is coming up and people ask me whether I would like to spend it at home (India) coz as they say 'home is where the heart is'

I reply:
Yes home is where the heart is... and I always carry my heart around with me. So where-ever I am that is where my heart is. Thus I am happy where-ever I am!

:)