Prof Prabhat Ranjan's Blog

[ This blog tries to summarize my research journey from childhood to now. Some of this is covered in a talk I gave at IIASA, Vienna – https://youtu.be/327A01oYqdo ] As a child, I was very quiet but observant. I would be watching my elder brother, Vijoy Prakash Jee, being taught and learn silently. I would not speak much or write much but would read. However I would not be serious just before exams but take it easy by reading magazines etc. In 1970,  at age of 10, I topped the prestigious Netarhat School Entrance Exam in the State of Bihar.

I came across this article on net http://liw.fi/linux-anecdotes/, written by one of Linus Torvald’s office mates at Helsinki. I have been a user of Linux since 1993-94 period. As I was reading this article I found few interesting coincidences and I thought I would share it in my blog. 1. Use of Sinclair “Let’s go back to the spring of 1991. In January, Linus bought a PC. He’d been using a Sinclair QL before that, which, like much British computer stuff, was ingenious and almost unusably different from everything else.“

I was writing my PhD thesis in Berkeley in 1985-86 period. When Mac was released in 1984 and they came for a demo to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), many scientists loved the idea of Mac and they placed orders then and there. I offered to set up the first Mac that arrived in my group. Once I did that, I had to do that for each of the subsequent Macs that arrived in the group.

About one year back, I had purchased a TATA Indigo Manza Elan car. This has a feature to allow bluetooth based phone to connect to sound system in the car. This makes one handle hands-free phone call, while driving. I have a LG P500 Optimus Android based phone. Initially when I linked Bluetooth, it worked after I learned to connect the device. Some time back I upgraded my Android version to 2.3 from 2.2. After this I noticed that bluetooth link would connect but calls would not be handled properly. I could not hear incoming call etc. I have been