Abhishek Dutta

“Common, skip the sections that seem less important“, I consoled myself while frantically preparing for the final board exams of Class XII. The syllabus for Physics and Chemistry were huge. Therefore, my study pattern got more careless as the shadow of the exam conspired for a war with my ignorance.

I stayed in the student hostel during Class XI/XII study at DPS (Dharan, Nepal). Frequent study breaks were a good way to recharge during those days of intensive exam preparation. During one such study break, I noticed the following anonymous quotation written on one of my friends study desk:

Skipping steps gives the illusion of speed.

It was like a traffic sign warning me of the consequences of my frantic exam preparation. Now I realise that I would also have been a casualty of “skipping steps” had I not seen this quotation.

In this blog post, I plan to keep a record of all such powerful and concise thoughts (without the related background story )

1. Organizers didn’t make any money; their poverty was proof of their integrity. – Barack Obama
2. Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T. S. Eliot
3. There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. – Josh Billings
4. He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie. – Mark Twain
5. If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants. – Isaac Newton
6. The world seems full of randomness but everything is planned. – Anonymous
7. I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby
8. If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe. – Abraham Lincoln
9. Fatigue is the best pillow. – Benjamin Franklin
10. By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. – Charles Wadsworth
11. Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. – John Betjeman (From Movie: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas)
12. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. – Winston Churchill
13. I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. – Blaise Pascal
14. The moderns do not realize modernity. – G.K.Chesterton
15. First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. – M. K. Gandhi

I feel that quotations are the best way to convey wisdom. I will keep adding more interesting quotations to this blog post. Visit wikiquote if you want to explore this powerful medium of conveying wisdom.

Last Updated:Apr. 26, 2012

On June 14, 2010 I wrote the following in my research log book :

as the ambient occlusion remains same in all the 4 images, why don’t they cancel out when we compute the ratio images?

In research, it is said that, “Asking the right question is the first step towards finding solution to a problem”. Little did I know that with this question in mind, I had embarked on a 78 days journey (from Mon. Jun 14, 2010 to  Mon. Aug 30, 2010) of adventure that involved lots of joy and sorrow almost every day and more importantly, my first experience of being a “child playing on a seashore“.

I am writing this blog on Aug 30, 2010 and it was on Fri. Aug 27, 2010 when we (me and my supervisor) submitted our paper, “Minimal Image Sets for Robust Spherical Gradient Photometric Stereo” for the Technical Sketches & Posters  program of SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. Yesterday, we uploaded a 6min 30sec video (MP4, YT) that explains our research and our submission is complete now. Although, I am not sure if the paper will be accepted for publication, I am very happy to have this wonderful experience that one gets when doing something for the first time. I couldn’t live without telling this incredible story to you. Moreover, in 10 or 20 years time, I would not remember this story with the clarity that I do now. I know that I will enjoy reading this post myself in the future and these words will help me cherish the first adventure of my research career.

This is my story as a researcher and I will present it in my blog in the future. This is a reason why I have started this blog. I have suddenly realized that blogging is a great way to share my experiences and write down them as stories so that whenever I feel nostalgic about those moments, I can read my blog to cherish those moments.

At present, I can think of the following stories :

• A boy starting to play on the seashore
• Finished learning to lose. Now its time to learn to win
• Machapuchhre – when I started learning from my failures

I will post these stories in my future blog posts. Bye

Update: Our technical sketch was accepted for the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 conference.