Asymptopia :D

Something a prof of mine used in a lecture today. I started writing the post under the "Assumption" that it's not an established word and made a futile attempt to build a theory to try establish the word. I don't know what took me so long, but I googled it after I thought I was done with the post. Looks like few mathematicians tried to be creative before I woke up. Never mind. Here goes my version.

When I first read the central limit theorem, I did not understand how could anyone have come up with that idea.  How did that man know that he would end up with a normal distribution?How large is that large exactly? And why would anyone want to think about that "large" number anyway? Can't we just deal with few things that we know ? Many such questions I can't recall now used to hover around that confused brain of mine. This was about four years ago, when I did not realize that I would be doing the exact same thing in a few years. I will assume things to make my life easy. Only then can I call myself an engineer.

We engineers take it granted that we have infinite/almost infinite number of data samples to arrive at a nice comfortable conclusion and make our lives easy.  But in reality, we might not even have a sufficient number of observations. We live in this assumed utopian world of asymptotism. Every thing settles down, when the number of samples become infinity. It's in nature that n makes everyone happy when it goes to infinity. We push it, torture it and send it to that place and only then, we breathe in peace. We leave it to the statisticians to do the math and prove that we are right. Mind you, we always turn out to be right.  

This approach is fine as long as we are just crunching numbers, converging some functions. But try not applying it to life. This world ain't utopia and we cannot push life to asymptopia.

Don't say things will eventually settle down when you have scars in a relationship. They might get your relationship closer to the breaking point. Work on issue as soon as you realize something's wrong. 

Don't say I will eventually figure something out. You might end up doing nothing. It's good to explore but not that good if you are using it as a cover for your laziness. There is no zone of eventual bliss. All we have is a limited number. Of everything. Try using it to the fullest.

P.S.All right. I got carried away :P

Musings

Its amazing how everything and everyone around us transform every single minute. The world isn't the same it was a fraction of second ago. So is human mind or at least mine. I usually ponder over a multitude of things ranging from small ideas that made large differences, different people's take on life, possible inspiration behind a piece of beautiful poetry, the source of energy in a lead guitarist in a rock band,  the struggle that a young guy went through to carve his life.... Like I said a Multitude of things. Here goes a glimpse one such musing.

A couple of months ago, a professor I adore said,"Never regret over lost time and money". I did not really understand what he meant by that. However, since I hold him in high regard, I simply accepted and tried to follow this principle since then. But somewhere back in my head, it beats me. How can one not regret over lost time?
Money, I get it and I do not usually cry over spending unnecessarily. I have this theory that in a couple of years I will be earning more than I need and might not have the time or desire to spend money on myself. So, I neither put more thought into savings nor calculate much before spending.
But Lost Time? Regretting over it is not uncommon for procrastinators like me. I start with blaming the web for wasting my time and then end up cursing myself for doing useless things which are not priorities at the moment. Obviously, I have misused time. So, how can I not regret it? But after few hours of contemplating over this notion (Yes,Grad life gave me all the lone time in the world), I think I see the point. It might not exactly be the reason behind my professor's advice though.
If I look back, every moment I spent has been well spent. I might have worked for more than necessary time on an assignment, mastered how not to study a research paper, read a book, enjoyed a comic strip, chatted for hours with a friend, glanced at wiki pages or watched a series of YouTube videos. But I have always been doing something and gaining some experience, good or bad. That is what was supposed to happen and it did. What I can do is look further. Because,my next act  is just a product of my current state of mind and learning from the past. (A Machine learning course might be influencing my thought process now :P ). So, if I keep on thinking about what I should not have done, I will definitely lose the focus on what should be done next. So, it makes sense not to regret over spent time because its more wasted time and there is no point in it. We should just learn from it and let it go.

Okay. I did not plan course of this post when I started it. So, pardon the incoherent thought process. My brain cannot think linearly!

Amazing Read

Here is something that makes perfect sense! Great one.

If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Charles Bukowski