Grading subjective answers using a program

An Optical Marker Sheet can be scanned and computer readers can detected the shaded spots and detect a correct / wrong answer based on an answer key.

But consider this challenge:-

a) A student can write an exam on a paper => Which can be graded by a computer.

b) A student can type an exam on a computer => which can be graded by a computer.

So, is this solution a) or b) possible ? At least for the option b) I am just wondering what would the software architecture of the system be like ?

Some professors are already using such software : Here is one such software - SA grader from Idea Works.

Just wondering what could be the applications for such a program : subjective grading - checking against a template and evaluating. There must be a "semantic component" in this software which "understands" the text - Just wondering whether it could be used in web search (for longer queries) ?

Reference article : http://chronicle.com/article/To-Justify-Every-A-Some/128528/

Has the post 2008 crisis economy peaked?

It doesn't seem really good as to what we are heading towards - stagnation in the western world which is influenced by a debt crisis in Europe and a deficit driven craze in the US. The Asian region still seems to be okay, with inflation being the main concern. Asian countries still have some levers to keep the domestic economy propelled by adjusting the interest rate downwards. And we have China which still wants to build excess stuff in almost all sectors which will keep demand going for a while.But not sure for how long Asian tigers can sustain with the help from the Western demand as most of them rely on exports.

The West seems to have lost the recovery race. And the banks are taking note of this by shedding jobs in Europe and NA. Oil is rolling back towards $90/bbl, leading indicators are slumping again, gold's hitting a record daily and interest rates on European bonds are on a massive rise. Or

This is all just a massive market scam to force US to go for a QE3 as most of the instruments above (stocks, bonds, oil, gold etc) are controlled by financial institutions and having milked $1.5 trillion out in profits from the treasury and setting record profits in 2009 and 2010 (not to forget massive bonus payouts), the profitability is on a decline.

The only neutral indicator "Unemployment" rate which the banks do not contribute much to hasn't improved that much.

Now we shall hear requirement of stimulus drumming up from the banks, Fed comes out with statement, followed by treasury and then Mr. Obama will sign for an another stimulus. But wait, he cant do it so directly this time as the Republicans will be vying for his blood. So where do we end-up ??

Is Obama the biggest disappointment of the decade

I usually reserve my reservations about people to verbal conversations only, as I am assume I do not have the authority to put it down in writing. But man, this guy for all the things the world/ more importantly US of A gave him, he has been the biggest disappointment ..

This is not what is expected from the 2008 Time Person of the Year and the Nobel prize winner.... probably the awards committee went too much ahead in time in declaring him a super-hero.

this week follows one more compromise on the debt issue.. cut deficit to push debt through 2012.. meaning.. i don't really care about socialistic agenda, I just want to get my second round of Presidency.. Capt' America is certainly as glued to his seat as is BSY.. (oh the latter resigned).. The Supreme commander is no better than our senile PM, who bends over and out to please Madame Gandhi..

I seriously wonder if Obama is a Republican mole inside the Democratic party... ?? If he seriously believes in whatever he says.. be it that the tax cuts for the rich is not appropriate, or his views on medicare and helping the 99% of American population. Why does he always reach a compromise with the Republicans and give away so many things? Is this what Harvard thought him to do??..

why cannot he Veto out the debt plan, and face the Supreme court..?? I am admiring Jr Bush more now as to how he managed to maneuver his totally stupid decisions through the house and senate .. be it the invasion of Iraq, tax cuts, $700 billion bailout package etc etc.. by creating FEAR and passing it through others spine successfully..

I am now against sending young ppl to mighty positions.. they suck due to lack of experience..

There are 2 types of students.

Some students follow their master to the hilt. They are the perfect students for a master. They follow the principles laid down by their teacher or the master with devotion. This is especially true in the "field" of religion. The principles laid down by the guru are religiously followed by the students. Those principles are so blindly followed that, the original intent of those teachings would perhaps be forgotten over the course of time. In the field of science, Aristotle's ideas were accepted EVEN by the scholars of those years without challenging until Copernicus, Galileo came along. Newtonian Physics dominated until Einstein came along....

Some students are smarter. They find the best points or the talent of their master which actually was responsible for making the master, and then advance to add their own blend of creativity and carve their own path and write their own destiny. The key point here is that: recognize when you should branch from your master - you cannot just worship your master your whole life- when will you put your own head to use ?

Now why am I saying all this ? I keep watching (or rather , forced to watch) all those reality shows. In one of the reality shows, they judge people based on how much the contestant follows the original song. If the contestant follows the vocals of the original singer accurately, he is judged better. Conformance to the original song is appreciated.

In other reality show, (the judges are of the calibre of SPB, Hamsaleka) they encourage creativity, improvisation.

Somehow I feel this value is more ingrained in the roots of Indian society. We tend to encourage and feel safe of about confirming to accepted ideas, time tested careers, family business continuation and never let a person blossom his creativity. I do not have a solution to this problem. The European countries, I always wonder, how do they have so many contributing citizens in so many diverse fields . It is very seldom that find a German/Swede/Finn who is a zero. They tend to honestly specialize in something. Hmm that is a big topic and we cannot conclude anything ....

I watched the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara yesterday. Did not expect much from the movie, but liked the songs which have been playing on the TV.

The movie has a certain mood of "feel good" attached to it. I like the idea of three thirty something friends going on a road trip. The best part is, the movie unfolds beautifully about how they open up with each other as time spent progresses.

Raja Sen's review is unsurprisingly merciless (as usual). Of course I did not watch Dil Chahta Hai , so I do not know whether this movie will click. Btw, still have not watched Delhi Belly.

Maybe we should do that road trip thing one day. Sounds like a fun idea.

my new nokia c7 mobile is lost. :-( ...Life sucks. I had so many contacts and nice photos and videos of my daughter in that phone. Reckless with valuable stuff....sometimes it is better to buy a phone like 1100...

i got down from my cab to wolf down my daily dose of pani puri and i must have dropped it on the way back....

Need to get a duplicate sim, that 7 year old mobile number is all important to me.

Current Music : Karma is a $#@%W$@

I am fascinated with scripts which deal with plagiarism. There was a Kannada movie called Kantheredu Nodu which is one of my favorite movies to remake if I were a director.....

The best part is that, I have not even seen this movie fully, but the script gives a lot of scope for improvisation. This mixed with the story of the Kannada playwright Samsa will be an interesting recipe.

However, as I browsing about all this plagiarism related trivia, I came across this REAL startler:-

What if William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him ? Whoa...When all the truth in this world is a big lie !

Check this article about Shakespeare Authorship Question - Maybe it is a conspiracy theory. But I would love to believe that Shakespeare wrote the stuff attributed to him.

Picture this :

You are dancing to some nice Jazz music and there is wine and all that. The background music to this is : Enter Sandman - From Metallica.

Sounds far-fetched ?

Some smart guy in Youtube has taken the vocals of Metallica and made a Smooth Jazz version of Enter Sandman, perfect for a romantic evening. heheh...The metal heads will be fuming !!!

March 27th

An early morning piping hot coffee with 2 ice cubes and a dose of Movies Now. A well slept night washes away the thoughts and the mind is a clean mark board. A missed calendar alarm and a missed sms. An eggless cake. A dusty red car trying to soak in the elusive rain . Speeding through a known area after a period of 2 years. Veg Sizzler. A red ant bite. Pipes through the nose and mouth. 2 pen shots and the black eyes clearing up.

Life goes on...

Weekend

Friday late evening there was a call from my manager to check some release blocking defects and I was forced to stay awake till 1:30. After that I took a nice nap on Saturday morn, but got up at 5:45 and I was spaced out and dizzy because of lack of sleep....

Saturday afternoon, I was tired and was stuffed like a python and wanted to sleep...But, I decided to watch Dhobi Ghat. It was a hot afternoon and I curtained my room and blocked sunshine and made the room dark and the ceiling fan whirred at a gentle speed. I was undoubtedly tired...

I dunno, if I had seen the movie in some other mood with expectations, I would not have liked it at all...But somehow, I was really freshened - Maybe it was the rains they show in the movie or the gentle pace or the life of Bombay - In fact nothing happens in the movie - Background music is so minimal and artistically used . And all the actors have done an awe-inspiring job. Very well made.

Hmmm...Other than that I had a convocation ceremony for my degree at MSRIT. The food was good and we were made to wear the caps and the provost of IIT had come all the way from Chicago and TN Seshan and Rajiv Mody (Sasken CEO) were there....Interesting event...

This Chinese New Year is the year of the rabbit : Not many people have turned up from the testing team from Hangzhou, and looks like I will have a relaxing week. Seems like the new year in China is a week long celebration.

We do not have such a vacation like that :-( Except for Diwali.

2 suns ...

Wow if our astronomers are to be believed, that would be an incredible event. Betelgeuse one of the real big stars is going to be blow up (or we see the event now) - it would be a Supernova. Here is a news report on Betelgeuse blowing up

This star is really gigantic and hence it would blast as a supernova....and then probably become a neutron star or a black hole. See the size comparison of Betelgeuse with Earth or even Sun here

But when it could blow up is a question : It could be million years from now ? Or as recent as 2012 ? If we are seeing it blow up in 2012 then it should have actually exploded in 1400s as it is 600 odd light years away and that light is reaching earth just now....

Nonetheless just wondering how can they predict life cycle of a star. A star can live for millions (or perhaps billions??) of years...Then how can we predict its lifecycle ? We might have advancements in astronomy for the past 100 years but that's just a fraction of time. They might be using some simulations/ theoretical models...

When you are testing Wireless Networking equipment, you can easily see testcases depicting scenarios like :

User travelling at 30kmph and he is doing an ftp application and he executes a "handover" (which would mean, one tower would handover its responsibilities of managing/ tracking this user to another tower because the user is going away from this cell) and the handover has to be successful and the ftp has to continue with an acceptable speed without disruption of service.

Back in 2006, I would have smirked : Good testcase....but, Ha! which moron would be doing an ftp while travelling. Probably this is valid in developed countries ...

But today in 2010, I found myself doing that - I remembered myself thinking aloud that day and I was so convinced that Wireless data services would not make a big impact to the life of people ! A real life Handover scenario (forget the testing and all that) ....Yes, I was downloading the "Angry Birds" application which is a popular game , sitting in the cab. The 2MB download started near my place and completed near Ghali Anjaneya Swamy temple which is like 5km away and there must have been at least 1 Handover....The download went through smoothly.

A http session is still a stateless protocol so all your web browsing may not have a real handover scenario but just a change in the serving cell....but an ftp session is a different story.

Which made me think about Vision. Some people can think 2 or three years down the lane. They have staunch beliefs that their ideas (be good or bad or useless) would come to light and people would use them. Vision is what a higher management team needs. They need to predict what will happen say in 2015 and then bring in the people who can execute their vision.

I know I may sound really like "??????" but it really pays for having a roadmap 5 years down the lane. True for corporations, True for Politics, Perhaps good to have for Personal Life as well...(I agree : Sometimes live for the moment works very well in life)

A mammoth idea

One Japanese professor has announced that he would go to Siberia and try to find the undamaged tissue of a mammoth or at least get some mammoth tissue from Russian scientists and clone a mammoth.

Sounds cooL enough...The technique of regenerating a mammoth is interesting to read but everything depends on what he is able to find.

I do not know, but somehow I do not like the idea of cloning....Remember Agent Smith ?

Also, do you remember the movie Omen-1. The son of the devil , Damien was born out of a wolf or some other creature. At that time, it sounded fearsome , but then that is what the science of cloning could do.

Sounding "Apocryphal" today ...heheh

No one killed Jessica

India is a country when one can easily lose hope because of the chaos, the grind. Most people continue to live this existence like sheep and some become tigers ruling the sheep and some become greedy dogs barking and snatching; Some are pigs - eat the filth and are despicable.

Can someone lose their life because of not serving drink ? Is the value of a drink as valuable as a life ? asks Vidya Balan's intrepretation of Sabrina Lal. It is a hard hitting depressing movie. Does not lose the tempo and really well done.

The music is FABULOUS. Amit Trivedi of Dev-D scores like a master in this movie. The songs are raw and they have the angst and dark depths required for this kind of the movie. One of the most promising music directors of the post Rahman era. Here is a sample of one of the songs : No one killed Jessica - Aetbaar.

The movie is a good one, it requires that kind of a mood to appreciate the movie - It tries to show what kind of role media can play in a democracy. Watch the trailer of No one Killed Jessica to understand the mood.

Interesting video : This is relevant to large corporations - Very true.

Mobile Number portability is coming to India

And as usual the Telephone Operators are fighting their asses out to lure away the customers. Now you might probably know the fiercest battleground of advertising is Telecom operators in India. They often come out with amazing ads.

But somehow, the Vodafone ads are a cut above the rest. They capture the eagerness and curiousity of a child in a fair "something special is happening here, i want to go there" very well.

Not sure who is the director ...The photographer...I dunno how they found that guy...You can tell a story abt him.... Check out this MNP ad from VDF

Here is an ad for MNP from Idea.

BUT APART from the ads, if you ask me about the VDF coverage, this is still a debatable point.

India has a booming Health Tourism Industry and this is reflected by the number of patients visiting India. However there is a strange case of politics happening in the field of medical research:

A superbug (an antibiotic resistant organism) has been named after New Delhi. It is being called "New Delhi superbug" - A name that hints that the origin of the organism is in Delhi, but Indian doctors say that's not the case.

Eminent doctors like Dr. Devi Shetty have spoken to the media that it is a case of tarnishing Indian Health Tourism.

Healthcare experts in India say the British are just worried because they are losing patients to hospitals here. “It’s a false alarm, I track infection and have not seen a single case in my hospital. Hospital-acquired infections are far more common in Britain and the West than in India,” said Dr Yatin Mehta, chairman, institute of critical care and anaesthesia, Medanta – The Medicity.

And the Journal () editor has also acknowledged the unfair naming.of the new delhi super bug.

Back to Monarchy

okies.. almost everyone knows this..but the statistics shown in this article on Indian politics turning into a family business is quite alarming..

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?269931

Not sure what the future of politics in the country is.. but it certainly doesn't seem to be encouraging.. in the future we will have "Shenshah e hindustan' rather than "prime minister of india" blah blah blah..

somehow when we were politically progressive we were economically backward, now when the economic engine is steaming well politics takes a backward step..

succession planning has successfully penetrated business, bollywood and politics.. the Defense force is the only salvation..

The office has been updated to the distant fairyland Manyata Tech Park.

Although the place is really damn good, I have to get used to this long journey YET AGAIN.

Hopefully I shall get used to this.