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My PhD journey … up, down, and then up
A PhD journey is never easy, and it becomes even more difficult when you are doing it alongside a regular faculty job at IGDTUW. But, there are many factors that have helped me sail through in this journey. The first factor is my PhD advisor (‘PK’ as he likes himself to be called, without the ‘Sir’). This in itself should give you a sense of his humility and down-to-earth attitude. He has been extremely understanding to me all throughout this amazing journey. He is one among those who has dedicated his life to academics. In this journey, I have had so much to learn from him, not just the technical…
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Excerpts from “Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers” by Tim Ferriss
About a year back I stumbled on this book, bought it then, but got to reading it recently, completed it a couple of days back. Absolutely a brilliant book, a must read for different perspectives in life! I read this book little differently than usual, I read only a few pages at a time, because there are many profound thoughts in these pages, it took a while to digest them before moving on. The book is 672 pages long, but did not feel like it was such a long book! I now follow all Titans on Twitter, whose account is mentioned in the book 🙂 This excerpt is no justice…
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Excerpts from “Hyperfocus: How to Work Less and Achieve More” by Chris Bailey
Don’t remember who recommended or how I got to know this book, finished it during this weekend. This book has some great advice, capturing it below. [Page 17] The more we can manage our attention with intention, the ore focused, productive, and creative we become. [Page 20] [41] But again, just because we’re busier doesn’t mean we’re getting more accomplished. [42] It doesn’t matter how busy we are if that busyness doesn’t lead us to accomplish anything of importance. Productivity is not about cramming more into our days but about doing the right thing in each moment. [70] Productivity is often a process of understanding our constraints…… Make sure you…
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A Journey Down the Precog Memory Lane
My story starts on June 13, 2018. I was on my way to Hyderabad to join as a Research Intern in the CVIT lab. On the train, I was browsing through Facebook lazily, while my mind was wandering elsewhere, wondering what kind of project I would work on at IIIT. As I was scrolling through a few memes in my Facebook feed, I thought it would be absolutely hilarious if I end up working on memes in my research. The very next day, Prof. Jawahar told me that I would be working on a project related to “memes for blind” with Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru. Thus, I began my wonderful journey…
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Excerpts from “What I Know For Sure” by Oprah Winfrey
I believe, I read this book a couple of years ago! Wasn’t in the habit of blogging then, but as always, I had highlighted some lines / paragraphs that were interesting / intriguing / though-provoking. This book is definitely one of those books that is quick to read, and has profound thoughts in it. I have referred to many points from this book in the last couple of years, here I am highlighting some excerpts from the book. [Page 5] And when you get the choice to sit it out and or dance, I hope you dance. [27] “Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires…
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At the crossroads: (with) Precog
Life is a journey through innumerable cross-roads. And at each cross-road, we are going to meet new people, experience new things, and spend our precious time. In January 2019, I (Aanshul Sadaria – IIIT H Class of 2020) came at one such crossroad, not that I knew it was going to be a life-remembering junction of my journey. I happened to remember reading a mail from an unusual named professor – Ponnurangam Kumaraguru asking for students to work on the #Killfie project. It didn’t tingle my senses much due to the fact that it was a more formal mail (which is quite anti-PK) and more importantly because it focussed on…
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Solving ‘cool’ problems, with the coolest of all – Precog!
My journey starts from back in May 2017. It was the summer when I was starting off with my first ‘social computing’ project. As I had just completed my 2nd year in college, I had almost no knowledge about the research domain. I was looking for professors or researchers in the field of computational social science and social computing to guide me with the technical aspects of the field. This is when I came across PK sir and his research group PreCog in New Delhi. They were doing some really amazing work analyzing social systems and the social web. What really interested me the most was this was all for…
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Excerpts from “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight
After completing the book on Elon Musk, started reading this amazing memoir by Phil Knight. The book is very gripping, especially getting to know the emotions in various situations, world tour planning, relationship with Bowerman, Pre, Johnson, Strasser, Hayes, Woodell, the details of law suits, managing the persistent situation of “Pay Nissho first”, etc. etc. I would highly recommend this book for any entrepreneur at any phase, and this book really fits the “entrepreneurial thinking” philosophy. [Page 21] The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer. [23] I was a linear thinker, and according to Zen linear thinking is nothing but a delusion, one…
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The Tale of my coincidental thesis featuring Ponguru as the Guru
The circumstances under which I met Prof PK cannot be exactly called fortuitous, but they do make for an interesting story, nonetheless (if I may say so myself). And am I glad that it happened! Let me start by telling you about this. After the sad demise of my previous thesis advisor (may his soul rest in peace), my previous research work had come to a grinding halt. After running like a headless chicken for a few months, the faculty thought it made more sense for me to dedicate my research hours to a new research topic. To the uninitiated, having to change research topics is not only daunting but…
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Excerpts from “Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future” by Ashlee Vance
After finishing the book “The Everything Store”, I started reading another book, I probably completed about 40 – 50 pages, the book was super heavy and a lot of new terms to digest, I will write a blog on this book, if I do end up finishing it!!! So was looking for a break, and picked up this 360 pages book on Elon Musk. Thanks to Dhruv Kuchal for giving this book to me in Summer / Fall 2019. Dhruv, one of our Research Associates #classof2019 is currently a Ph.D. CS student at GaTech. [page 9] “I [Elon] think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet stuff, finance,…