Sunday, April 16, 2006

An interesting MPhil application

Some time ago we received an MPhil application. That actually has nothing to do with me, but somehow it get circulated around. Based on my very limited knowledge about that area (well I did teach that, but that does not mean I know enough), I determined that the "research proposal" is cranky. (The bell starts ringing whenever you see "equations" of algorithms can be "incorporated" together. He already had an algorithm, and a "theory" of the same name. Also plans to have "month by month expansion" of algorithms.)

Then one day I was hoping to get some fun when reading the "proposal" again, and this time I googled the applicant's name. Assuming it is not a name collision, this person had written a software that is claimed to be many times faster than existing products, and hence got an award from a nearby country, and made his name on BBC, Slashdot, etc. This is followed by criticisms about the validity of the speed claim. He claimed the software would be commercialized soon, but of course it is nowhere to be seen now.

He may be a good programmer, but there are many people who are good at one thing and completely cranky on another related thing...

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