Sandeep Deb's Home Page
Nearly 10 months have passed since I have
updated my site. Yesterday, when I sat down to make
some changes, I couldn't help but remember one
of my friend's observation that the rate of change to this site is inversely proportional to
how mentally occupied my work life keeps me. Last few months have been a whirlwind of turbulence,
tossing me like a lost leaf through the troughs and crests of technology. From J2EE, Portal,
C/C++ to niche fault tolerant hardwares and operating systems like Stratus and VOS. Quite an
experience, I must confess.
My current engagement is all about brute speed. Gone are the days when adrenalin used to gush thinking
about algorithm optimizations at a millisecond level. Now a millisecond feels like an eternity, a
microsecond a lifetime. Recently, I devoted nearly 30 hours to search for an unaccounted 500 nano
seconds which were showing up in one of the algorithms. If I have to draw an analogy of my
current feelings - it's almost like that of a bridge building mechanical engineer who has taken on to
nano machineries.
This current project of mine is about building the heart of a stock exchange, the trading engine. I must confess that all these years, the dynamics of money hasn't been my top most priority - well, actually, not untill I felt the need for things which money could buy. Last few weeks have been different. Having read reams of functional specifications about trading systems & equity market, a spark has trundled its way through to the deep caverns in mind where the fascination for pseudo random systems have been simmering for a long time. I have had my infatuations with pseudo random system dynamics like genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic in the past, but nothing compares to the motivations that the market dynamics provide. For one, the returns are tangible with hard earned money at stake.
And so I opened a DMAT account with a bank and dipped my ankles into the market. Initially the water was icy cold but soon I realized that to be able to ride the waves, feeling the temparature at my ankles was not sufficient. I had to smell the wind and scourge the shore for better waves to ride. Not only that, I also had to learn how to catch the wave as it's forming and get off it before it comes crashing and turns into froth. To do the beach hunting, I needed access to data and a way of extracting and visualizing it. Luckily both were within reach. Data was freely available on the Internet and my fingers have always itched to code. So there I was, hiding under my quilt after my lovely wife had dozed off and working on my latest creation. I call it Pluto, after the greek god of wealth. Pluto resides on my latop as a daemon, silently gathering market data and materializing on the summon of a click to present data in a multitude of analytical formats. The image on the left is the logo of Pluto. You can read more about it here.
24-Feb-2009: One of the common
threads which run in my family is that of addiction to 'Star Trek'. It is almost a ritual to
watch an episode post dinner. Recently, we finished watching the entire DS9 series and my 6
year old son caught on to the fancy of commanding the "Defiant". Majority opinion (wife and son),
reached a consensus that the responsibility of building the "Defiant" be bestowed upon me, with
my son volunteering to be my helping hand. And so we set forth on a mission, armed with styrofoam
sheets, cutting knife and lots of glue. All along my engineering years, I had been taught how to
decompose a 3-Dimensional object into projections and create isometrics out of projections.
To create a 3D solid from its projection was something I had never experienced on this scale.
The image on the left shows the final outcome.Clicking on the image will take you to the blogs section which captures the fantastic voyage.
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