A Software Engineer's Diary...

The current kerfuffle over Snapchat and Facebook's  'self-destructing' videos actually being saveable  is a great thing to see, because it reminds people of why they should never sext unless they want their junk splattered all over whatever site the porn impresario and professional jerk Hunter Moore is running this week. Repeat after me: Anything you put on the Internet is potentially public. P.S. Cell phones count as the Internet. This is pretty much a fixed rule. Digital data can be copied. If it's only on your own computer, you have control of it. But as soon as it's shared with anyone —  anyone  — that person can copy and spread it. Or, as the always witty Chris Davies  said on Twitter , "Keep putting your genitals in front of people & they'll inevitably go viral." Oh, Those Teenagers Teenagers overlook this because teenagers are actually clinically brain damaged. They're biologically programmed to ignore risk and act on emotio...

Srinivasa Ramanujan  (Emory University) While on his death bed, the brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan cryptically wrote down functions he said came to him in dreams, with a hunch about how they behaved. Now 100 years later, researchers say they've proved he was right. "We've solved the problems from his last mysterious letters. For people who work in this area of math, the problem has been open for 90 years," Emory University mathematician Ken Ono said. 'For a brief window of time, he lit the world of math on fire.' - Emory University mathematician Ken Ono Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematician born in a rural village in South India, spent so much time thinking about math that he flunked out of college in India twice, Ono said. But he sent mathematicians letters describing his work, and one of the most preeminent ones, English mathematician G. H. Hardy, recognized the Indian boy's genius and invited him to ...

Round 1 (Telephonic)  Q1. For a given number, find the next greatest number which is just greater than previous one and made up of same digits. Q2. Find immediate ancestor of a given Node Q3. Clone the linked list having an extra random pointer in nodes which is pointing random node in the list. Round 2 (F2F)  Q1 In a binary tree, a random pointer is given in each node. If this pointer pointing other than any successor of the node then set it as NULL. Otherwise let it remain untouched. Write code. Q2. You will be given the number of pairs of parenthesis. Find out the total possible valid unique combinations and there should not be any duplicity. Write code Round 3 (F2F)  Project and some questions related to it. Q1 Given an in-order traversal of a special binary tree having property that the node is always greater than its left and right child. Construct the tree and write code. Q2 Find top 10 trending words inserted by users in sites like twitter. Only alg...

State-owned telecom firm BSNL's Website was hacked today by a group that demanded withdrawal of section 66 A of the IT Act.  The Website 'www.bsnl.co.in' was, however, quickly restored.  The group Anonymous India said that it hacked the Website in support of activists Aseem Trivedi and Alok Dixit, who are on a hunger strike to protest Section 66A of the IT Act.  "Our website has been hacked and our people are working on it," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director R K Upadhyay told PTI.  The site has since been restored. The Twitter account of Anonymous India (@opindia_revenge) said, "BSNL Websites hacked, passwords and database leaked http://pastebin.com/wjtiyvx4 Anonymous India demands withdrawal of Sec 66A of IT Act."  Trivedi and Dixit are on a hunger strike for the last six days in protest against Sec 66A of IT Act.  Facing public protests on the recent controversial arrest of some persons for their Facebook...

Placements at IIT Kharagpur have started with a bang. Three students have bagged salaries of Rs 80 lakh per annum while eight others have got annual offers of Rs 75 lakh each from Google and Microsoft.  "All the students are from the computer science department. The three Google recruits will be based in Mountain View, US, while the other eight will be in Redmont," said Rinhul Chandra, vice-president of the student's council in IIT-Kgp. The placements started on December 1 and the first phase will last till December 20.  Last year, the highest salary offered at IIT-Kgpwas Rs 78 lakh from Facebook, while in 2010, Dhiraj Kumar Singh had bagged a Rs 1.7 crore offer from Facebook which is the highest ever across all IITs. Though, the highest pay packages sky-rocketed this year, the minimum offers averaged around Rs 7-8 lakh.  "Till now, 650 of 1,775 students have been placed. This is the largest batch in the history of the IITs. Only if an...

Games can be both a welcome and an annoying diversion on Facebook, the world's most popular online social network. This year, Facebookcrossed a big milestone - reaching 1 billion active users. Game companies such as "FarmVille" creator Zynga and Rovio Entertainment of "Angry Birds" fame seek to tap into that vast base of users to gain more players for their games.  This week, Facebook issued a list of the 25 top-rated games that launched on Facebook in 2012. The company says the rankings are based on user ratings and engagement with the games. It's the same methodology that Facebook uses to rank apps in its App Center.  Some of the games are played on Facebook's website, while others are only on Apple's iOS or Google's Android devices using Facebook's app.  Here's the list:  1. "SongPop" (by FreshPlanet, on Facebook.com, iOS and Android)  2. "Dragon City" (by Social Point, on Facebook.com)  3. "Bike Race" (b...

Delhi may soon become the first city in the country to have global retail chains like Walmartand Tesco, with the city government all set bring a bill in the Winter session of assembly beginning Tuesday to remove hurdles in ensure "effective" implementation of FDI in multi-brand retail.  The city government will bring an amendment to theAgricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act for facilitating direct purchase of produce from farmers by multi-national retailers.  The amendment to the existing legislation will allow direct connectivity between retailers and farmers.  As per the existing provision, farmers cannot sell their produce directly to retailers as it has to be routed through the wholesale market which are mostly under the grip of middlemen.  Officials said the amendment to APMC Act was required to "break monopoly" of the wholesale traders so that retailers can directly buy agricultural produce from farmers.  To break the monopo...