Scintillating cogitation

Moving on....

2005-12-12T03:13:00.000-08:00

Hi all. After 11 months of blogging on Blogger, the time has finally come that I move on... with life and everything else. No, this blog is not closing and the world will not have relief from my rants. This blog has moved to....

http://adjournment.bytebite.net

I hope changing a bookmark and link on blog is not a big trouble for you. Feed links for new blog... RSS2-Entries RSS2-Comments and Atom Ciao... cya on new blog. PS Auto-forward has been disabled...

Dream Job

2005-12-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how comments are becoming central to new posts. When I started this blog it was about my thoughts. Independent thoughts. Not many people visited and even lesser commented. Recently that has changed. And I have started depending more and more on people's comment to get ideas for new posts. This thing came to me after TT talked about getting a job I would love and enjoy. So, we (me and couple of friends) started talking. One of them wanted to make advertisements. Other wants to write lines for greeting cards. One dreams of becoming a professional actor. So what do I want to do? I want to go to places. Explore. Not visit famous places in city... go into small marketplaces. See small museums.. not just the famous ones. Something like what they do on Lonely Planet. Yes, I want to be host on Lonely Planet. The hosts get to go to all these exotic places. Small places with real people. See things that most tourist miss. I love just walking around the city watching people live. For example, the best tourist visit of my life is the one I made to Quebec. We never went to see the big church or museum. We walked around the Old Fort. We got to see this small perfume making "press" where they made pure perfumes from flowers and vegetables. We walked down the cobbled pathways to a toy shop. It was decorated like it was Christmas (it was sometime in June). We sat at Fort Square restaurant had good food. We saw the real Old Quebec. Next day we went to a local restaurant (recommended by the shopgirl in perfume shop). On way back we saw this small factory-shop kind of thing which made chocolate. They made chocolates in shape of roses, daises and all the flowers you can think about. It was the best way to see the city. It was totally personal tour... not impersonal guide-book tour. So, my dream job is to do some show like this. Where we go exploring city. Visiting small places of interest. If I have such a job... money won't be a criterion. I would take a job like this for mere livable salary. Any offers?

MBA guru's take on IIT

2005-12-07T04:48:00.000-08:00

I read an article by Arindham Chaudhari titled "MBA Mafia" where he goes on and on in circles criticizing IIMs and like (what ever that means). When he realizes that he is out of ideas or gets bored of his own rants he makes target out of IITs. I expect a two-page-spread ad saying, 'Dare to think beyond IITs? Join the XYZ college of engiennering. (No surprise if there is a spelling mistake) Even before I venture in ass-kicking based on facts and rational reasoning, let me bring to notice two self-contradicting statements from the article. "...it is a pity that they tied up with a private education company to spread the IIT, Kharagpur and IIT, Delhi certified courses through a shady arrangement with them (by setting up something called CEP, a private body with a managing director inside the IIT Kharagpur campus and FITT, another private body with a managing director inside the IIT, Delhi campus) in an effort to confuse the students that they were getting something from IIT." AND "I know so much about it because in an attempt to search for good partners to provide quality IT education to our students, I also fell for it and made an alliance with this private company. It is only later that I realized and was conveyed clearly by IIT, Kharagpur and IIT, Delhi that they had nothing to do directly with this firm!" Aren't two statements contradictory? If IITs were in an unholy alliance why did they inform you Mr.AC as to what was wrong? Also doesn't the statement show lack of judgment on your part? Not exactly a good quality in MBA guru. As for FITT... it is not a private body. It stands for Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer. A center incubating ideas of students at IITD, owned by IIT Delhi. So either Mr.Chaudhari doesn't know about FITT or definition of 'private body'. Now let me come to the statments like "The reality also is that IIT education has nothing to do with the IT revolution and success stories in the Silicon Valley." Clearly, the fact that Vinod Khosla (co-founder, Sun Microsystems), Narayan Murti (founder Infosys), Amit Singh (Project leader, IBM) and many other examples are unknown to Mr. Chaudhari. "Most of them were available floating around freely in America or some rare ones in the Indian MBA market." Placement statistics of last year at IITD show 83% students placed were placed in India. Clearly market research and data mining are not strong departments at IIPM. "Even today the software part of education at IIT is not world class." The statement remains unsubstantiated through out, yet I will defend the mud sling shot. I have studied in IIT for 7 semesters now and I can bet I know more programming languages than number of DVDs Mr.Chaudhari owns. Right from low level assembly language to server side scripting I know many languages. And I am not even in IT department. In fact there is no IT department in IITD! And if you confuse Computer Science with IT you should not be using jargons like IT at all. Computer Science is NOT about software and IT. I can shread the article line by line, word by word... but what is the point. Everyone knows what kind of MBA guru Mr.Arindham is. The kind who has to buy newspaper pages to get his shoddy articles published. Isn't it other way round... MBA gurus get paid when their articles are published in newspaper with "added circles and triangles"?

What will I do with money?

2005-12-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Well the placement season is upon IIT campus and every company is setting their tents up. Everyone is giving out huge, no wait HUGE packages. Ranging anywhere between Rs.4lac p.a. to USD 80k p.a. When I told this to my dad we had this conversation.... ME: Dad they are practically throwing away money. They are giving us such huge salaries. DAD: That I can see. Good for you. You might get a job which pays more than what I get after 30 years of experience. ME: Hmmm... but I need all the money I can get. So I am applying in all the best companies. I want a huge house with all the best techno things in it. DAD: I don't know what a 20 something kid will do with all the money. After all you are going to need 2 meals a day and 1 bedroom at night. ME: Well I can have two cellars.. one for white wine and one for red! Now you can call me greedy.

Read this...

2005-12-06T05:17:00.000-08:00

I know, for fact, that some people think they know what the post wants to say just from the title and thus they wander away even before reading first few lines. There genius... now guess what this post is about? (Haha!) Well if your answer was: a) Indian economy, share marker, private sector, etc. b) IITs, education systems, IIMs, etc. c) Ideas, gadgets, inventions, technology, etc. d) Combination of above or all of them. Then you are wrong. This post is about a traffic light. A traffic light that stands tall, steady and yellow. It stands proudly with red and green lights on it - yellow light doesn't work. Due to this traffic light I had to stop my bike and this incident took place. I was standing... waiting for signal to turn green, when a 20 something female stopped her car beside me. I gave a side glance and continued waiting... not looking again. The girl was decently hot (excuse the expression), but I am just not interested in 90 second flings. Just when everything was peaceful, the girl honked. I looked around... there was no vehicle coming from behind which might have hit her. We were on first line so no honking required to make people in front budge. The only explanation my big ego can come up was this: She honked at me! So, either I am handsome (parameters of handsome-ness can be found on box of Fair & Handsome) or she pressed horn accidentally. Why did she honk? Offended that a guy was not ogling at her? Well here is a free pointer... If you apply make-up to look hot and were gifted a swanky car by your dad, you are not my type. I am not looking for a rich gf, I have a rich dad for all my financial needs. So what is the subject of the post.. I don't know!

As orignal as it gets

2005-12-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

In my last post Conufsed asked "...is this original?" And given the fact that activity in my brain due to recent end semester exams has not yet subdued leaving my brain numb again, it got me thinking. Is it original? Is this your idea? You have a copyright over it? Do humans have original ideas? Wright brothers got their idea of plane from birds. The wing support structure for airplanes (for added strength) was inspired from Bee-hive structure. In fact some theories in Nature Design say that every Intelligent Design is derived from a natural patterns. Leaving the scientific domain behind, let us foray into domain of literature. Doesn't our working knowledge of a language puts a constrain on our ideas? Or more importantly, the ideas, stories, poems or articles like these that we propose to be original, are they really original? Aren't they derived from life around us combined with literature we got exposed to in past. Here is a thought experiment to get you thinking on same lines. A child is kept in seclusion from birth. He is taught alphabets, words and sentence formation, through a method which does not involve direct intervention of humans. He is kept in a white room which has absolutely nothing. Not even color. The temperature inside the room is always constant. So is light intensity. Everyday when he wakes up he finds enough food that will last him a day, but he knows not how it appears. He doesn't know that a world exists outside these four walls and everyone has a more interesting life than his. Will this child be able to conceive an idea? If yes, what would be his first idea? Disclaimer: No harm was done to any innocent children while devising this experiment.

Where is God?

2005-12-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder where God is. Mostly when exams are going on... or when I see some romantic movie (don't ask). Yesterday my exams got over and to celebrate I saw two movies, 'A Walk to Remember' and 'Before Sunset'. Sideline: Believe it or not, yesterday was the first time I saw 'A walk to remember'. And I think it is too early to say I comprende. The movie is little deeper than I expected and thus I will digress from writing a review. 'Before Sunset' is a good movie. Well, 'Before Sunrise' was such a good movie that I was little skeptical towards a sequel. You know, sequels usually suck. So, I didn't wanted 'Before Sunrise' to end. The movie ended with so much -well for the lack of a good word- openness. But then after many recommendations I decided to watch it. And I liked it more than the original. I don't know why I liked it more... was it that it was only 7 hours squeezed into 2 hours which made it all more detailed. Or this time around topics discussed was lot more closer to me. But this is one of those rare sequels which are better than original. Coming back to topic, where is God? In 'Before Sunrise', Celine says, "If there is God it is in space between you and me." And I believed her... in true sense. I mean not because it came from a beautiful woman with French accent. Sideline again: I have never met a French female in real life... but there is so much romantic hype about France that I want to meet one. So here is what I have to add, as to places where God might be hiding: a) In the hallow of hands when two friends shake hand. b) On lips of parents when they give you that welcome smile. c) In phone, which connects you to person you love when feeling down. d) Cup of black coffee when it is 3 am in morning and you still have 4 hours of work to complete. e) Somewhere on internet, working as operator introducing me to beautiful minds. God is in details.

Rigid Systems

2005-12-01T03:51:00.000-08:00

Even before the unfateful incident of Vijay from IITB could settle another incident has taken place at IITK. A second year student at IITK from mechanical department has committed suicide. Now I don't know either of them on personal basis, but having seen more than three years of IIT system I think I have some rights to make a statement. So here goes... The System There are two mid-semester and one end semester exams. At times we have more than one paper on the same day. (I have two exams of 2 hours each tomorrow.) So no doubt the system is rigorous and I agree it should be. But they are rigid as well. When you take in the best people of the country you should provide them flexibility. Rules for passing marks are understandable, but the rule of attendance is unfair. Saying, life is unfair (like TT said in comments of previous post), doesn't cut it. Life is unfair but that does not justify unfair system. 'My house, my rules' doesn't cut it either. Intelligent people should make rules which have rational reasoning behind them. In fact their are number of things in IIT system that are beyond justification (at least to me). For example IIT is the only university on the list of top 10 universities for undergrad courses which has... a) Ban on students using vehicles in campus. b) Stringent attendance rules. c) Relative grading policy. (Subject to discretion of professors) d) A very strict credit requirement criteria (has been relaxed in new curriculum). When the system is taking intelligent human beings, it should provide them freedom. It is freedom that brings creativity, not attending classes. The administration is welcome to make higher standard of passing courses - currently you require 30% marks in IITD to pass a course, they are welcome to notch it up to level they deem fit - but digress from forceful learning. In fact their is no concept of force learning. You can make a person sit in class, but you can't force him to learn. And if student is not learning in class why even make him sit there. And how does it matter if he learned from reading a book or by attending classes, if he is passing tests it implies he has gained knowledge of the subject and that is all that should matter. Under Current Though on surface both suicides look similar a deeper probing needs to be done. They both committed it because of stress the system puts on the students. But similarities end here. Vijay got his degree extended because of short attendance, while Dhara was a second year student (so by no means his degree was extended, yet). IITK doesn't have stringent attendance rules (as far as I know). While Vijay's case brings parity in interest and department allotment scheme, along with unreasonable attendance norms to notice, Dhara's case brings high stress of exams and high expectations attached to students - to surface. The Media What surprises me more is that nothing more has happened and how well the media has mutilated the news to make it sound "fault of the students" by attaching adjectives like hacker to deceased. They even reframed and changed the wordings of a senior professor in IITB which offended many students. The professor has released verbatim record of what he told the media. The whole incident has been covered as a masala news by lowly news channels and immoral newspapers. Thus, the clear message behind the deaths has been lost or mistranslated. Update: Hindustan Times has removed their article on Vijay's case. Did they realize their mistake or was it forced by IIT authorities, who have refrained from reacting (as per report by Varun from IITB), is yet to be known. The site says, "Sometimes due to contractual obligation, some of the content is removed from the site after a period of time." Given the past record of newspapers in this case, I won't give HT benefit of doubt. The Implications At the cost of sounding a little filmy (translation: movie like), let me point out that IIT system did not kill two intelligent humans. They caused ripples in life of many. Family, friends, mentors and other people attached with these students. The cruel IIT system should be thinking twice before making rules which effect many people, not limited to students at these institutes Take for example changes in JEE 2006, which had to be revised (sooner than expected) after protests from exam-takers. The immediate need for revisions just show lack of thoughts put in by administration while making rules. These incidents will also effect, adversely, the position IITs enjoy world over, but that should not be the central concern of administration right now. The law-makers should be more concerned about the faults with the system which make people of high caliber go nuts in this system. Mechanical Feelings (The facts in this section are best to my knowledge) Another disappointing facet of whole things is fellow students' reaction to whole incident. Beside a few blog posts and heart tugging condolences for Vijay there has been no reaction from students at IITB. The only reaction from faculty lobby has been the verbatim release of afore mentioned interview. (Update: A comment in afore mentioned post of Varun quotes many reactions by IITB authorities, but comment being posted by anonymous can't be verified.) Exams have ended in IITB and most students are back home watching soaps on TV. What happened to human feelings? Did the system kill emotions? No protest... demand for change of rules... nothing! In IITs almost everyone lives his life, not concerned about fellow students. This is a bad thing, at least from my point of view. Scenario is not very different in IITK. Most of my friends have "Studying..." for status message on IMs. They don't have the time to stop and think of what pushed a fellow IITian over the edge. The efficiency with which the system has turned people into machines is simply amazing. I hope my fellow students take upon themselves to question administration on rules which make no sense. Also administration stops living in wonderland and celebrating positions in top universities in world to smell the mould in the system. And not just register the faults in the system but also fix it.

Death has a plan

2005-11-30T14:03:00.000-08:00

Just saw "Final Destination" part one and two. It is about premonition, someone sees how everyone is going to die and he/she intervenes, saving many people. But death is inevitable, so it alters its plans and restarts taking toll. Taking people who were supposed to die in first place but were saved due to intervention. This reminds me of a fairy tale I read in childhood. Once there was a very old crow who was friends with Yuma's ox. For the uninitiated, Yuma is the god of death. He gets to decide whose time is up. So once when this old crow was visiting his old chum, Yuma sees him and gives a smile. The crow think, "That's weird, why did he give me that smile. I am old and it could be my time, I better go and see my kids for last time." The ox inquires what amuses his master to which he said, "I had decided that his time was up. The place I decided was his son's place. Had he stayed here I couldn't have taken him. Now I can." Kind of shows death's plan right? So while at the topic, let me propose a theory. Excuse me if it doesn't sound rational, I am bored of being rational all the time. So, let me venture into regime of unexplained supernatural. According me, if there is subtle plan... below the surface of the reality, then everything we call destiny, fate, death, luck everything is one and the same. They are just part of same package. They are line segments. Part of line connecting death to birth and everyone else's life. Kind of web of line. Another analogy to explain is of a chess board. We are all pieces with different moving power. We have interaction power with others and we cause others to restrain their moves. And then there is a Queen, which can move in almost all direction and will take you when you are on its line. In fact there are many Queens. You keep making moves and they keep making moves. And then they corner you, forcing you by restraining your moves and then finally, checkmate. Funny, I always write theories and things with me in center. But when talking of death theory I wrote whole theory with pronoun "you". So do you believe in death, destiny, call-whatever-you-will's plan?

Collective Decisions

2005-11-29T13:45:00.000-08:00

Are collective decisions progressive? This is one question that has been central to our Free Media Project. For the uninitiated, this is a project inspired from the incident of IIPM v/s Bloggers, in which we plan to provide a website as a medium to share news without any bias from the media (the website). To make this project a success the biggest hurdle is to get rid of one-person-editorship, which is one of the major bias in convential media. For this purpose, we intend to make an algorithm of collaborative editorship, but will it work? Though the algorithm/model to make a collective decision is mathematically stable various real life example show that collective decisions are not very well implemented and carried out. Take for example, ban on genetically modified food (GMF) in European Union (EU). EU has a policy of rotating presidency. Until recently GMF had a short term ban of six years in EU. A year (or so) back this ban was lifted. Switzerland, not being a part of EU has continued -and plans to extend- the ban. So next year when Austria, which is pro-banning of GMF takes over presidency of EU, the union might get back to square one. I am not even talking about the correctness of collective decisions and thus not giving examples of elections in Bihar and US, they are too cliche examples of collective decision going nowhere. I am just wondering if they (the decisions, not Bihar and US) move in one direction, be it in direction of progress or failure.

A story of overconfident nerd

2005-11-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

The geek post will have to wait, as my end semester exams are on me and I have to scrape through all the courses. So, working on it. I will be working on the post while going back home and 12 hours of train journey should be enough to finish it. Anyways, let me tell you the reason behind my absence from world of blogging during last 24 hours (not that I expect anyone missed me). The whole incident is narrated from 3rd person perspective, as a narration of story. Once upon a time, near the start of 21st century, in the land of geekdom there was an overconfident nerd. He though he was invincible. He was so vain that he never used any firewalls or an antivirus. One fine day his laptop crashed. "Well these kind of things happen. Must be some overload caused by my work." You see he never considered virus as a cause, he thought his brain power and programming skills out-numbered 1GB RAM. So he reinstalled the OS and was happily working again. 12 hours passed and his system crashed again. "Damn!", he cursed, "Again! This time I didn't do anything. Is it some primitive virus, which instead of crashing networks by pinging and scrambling DNS tables, is crashing my hard disk?" Once again he reinstalled OS, even reconfigured his boot sector. This time it crashed in 2 hours. "Definitely not a network virus or worm. It IS a primitive virus. But if that is the case how did it survive low level formatting and change of boot sector?" Then he saw the black box on floor. His eye became wide. He couldn't believe it. The virus was residing in the external drive... his precious 250GB external drive. He couldn't format THAT! It had numerous movies, no longer available on LAN. Complete collection of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Scorpio and many more bands. So he fired up his desktop and searched a cure for virus. Something that could restore data. He found one. (Duh! He was overconfident, not dumb.) He even traced the virus back to the executable he downloaded off the LAN. A software installer... old school trick, cheap but works. Looked through log files of his Direct Connect client and found the name of person who transmitted the virus. Made a mental note to use his email ID next time when some crack/keygen/serial/hacking site required subscribing to some shitty newsletter for advertisement or fund raising program. Done with Byte-level scanning of all the hard disks, he smiled to himself. Installed a firewall and real-time antivirus. And peace was restored to geekdom. Moral of the story: Bacchon, apne apne computers par ek accha sa antivirus aur firewall install kar lo. [Translation: Kids, install a robust antivirus and firewall on your computers.] The power of an IITian Don't mess with me. And never make fun of my name either... You have been warned. PS Actually my exams are going on and I am reading Dilbert to take break. Oh, by the way ability and probablity of head explosion go very high while exams are going on.

With great names come great responsibilities

2005-11-27T01:47:00.000-08:00

Continuing on my last post on habit of being outspoken and being politically incorrect, here is another post. Tech post will have to wait, but it will be something you have never seen before. Bigger than biggest SRK blockbuster (from geek POV). Not in size but in idea. It will be the post of it's kind. No post has been ever written like this (best to my limited-150-RSS-feed knowledge). So stay tuned. So the title says, with great names come great responsibilities. The title does not imply that when you have a great [public] name you have to watch your mouth. That is too obvious. I am talking about being in a (so-called, some may point out) prestigious institute like White House, Princeton, IITs, etc. Every single word people attached to these institute say are scrutinized by media. And even when media is not watching, people are undesignated ambassadors of their institutes and thus have to be politically correct. Let me narrate a real life incident to explain further. I was attending Pre-Placement Talk (PPT) of a certain company (referred to as X from here onwards) from sector of "Technology Solutions". In PPT people from companies are supposed to tell students what does their company do, what job profile will be like, compensation, etc. so that students can make an informed choice in coming placement season. So here I was, attending PPT of X, a recent startup with low compensation package. Needless to say, given the reputation and low salary, the turn-out was low. After they were done, Q&A round started where no student asked any question. Slightly embarrassed the HR manager took upon himself to get the interaction started. Given the high inclination of IITians toward consultancies he asked who wants to go to a consultancy? Many hands went up, mine included. Now there is something about me, may be I look more dumb than average or brighter than average (I would like to believe in later), but whenever such a situation arises in class, halls, meetings, anywhere.. I am the one who gets picked. (Numerous solutions I have done on blackboard, by Prof's invitation, with screeching sound are witness to this.) So the guy asked me what was my reason. I gave something off the top of my head. He smiled. Started refuting my reason... at times bad-mouthing consultancy sector and how technology solution sector promised better career. Now there is a certain way to give subtle hints as to how your sector is better than any other sector. In fact a certain bank did it so well that they ended up getting a huge response. Anyways, returning to the narration, so the guy went on and on.. towards the end everyone was pissed off. We weren't there for sector comparison. We are intelligent enough (and this may sound a little egotist, sorry) to do that our self. And in the end he said, pointing straight to me with his pen (talk about being impolite), "Given your reason for joining consultancy, I think you would be better-off in field of research." I had half the mind to say (very sarcastically), "Oh is this a career counseling session? Sorry, I came in wrong room. I was looking for PPT of X." But I did not. The HR guy and his subordinates offended other people as well. Asking technical or personal questions which some of us could not answer or rather won't answer in public (as the case may be). Well no one is master of his field, we are only students. And in any field you can always ask questions which the Guru of that field won't be able to answer. As for the personal questions, some like to keep them personal and that is why interviews are done in private. What I am glad about is that day none of us (students) stooped down to their level and reacted back in immature way. The way they were acting. We maintained our poise, as any intelligent community does. We did justice with the responsibility we were given when our names were attached with name of IITD. The HR guy did not uphold the name of his company and left a offensive impression of X on us, that's his fault. But I am glad none of us did the same mistake and made a bad impression of our university. And this is what I mean by the title. It is not only when you have a great public name for yourself. PS May be I take things a little too seriously. But is it bad?

Libral Blogging

2005-11-26T12:40:00.000-08:00

Singapore may be ranked low when it comes to press freedom, but they sure do know when to pull the trigger. Recently a 17 year old guy was placed on 2 years of probation for writing anti-Muslim remarks on his blog. He also has to do 180 hours of community service. Press freedom is a must have and I am all for it (I am still working on that Free Speech Media, if you remember). But recently it has been brought to notice through multiple cases that Web2.0 is being used for anti-semitic publications, non-secular promotions, etc. Basically against everything that a liberal nation stands for. It is time we, the bloggers, realise that Web2.0 is a formidable thing, something like a nuclear fusion tank. We can use it to make electricity for all or a nuclear weapon. The choice is upon us already. And as it is said, some people take responsibility and some are given responsibility. In this case, it is both... by starting a blog we have taken a responsibility and also a great deal has been handed to us. So, lets not use it to abuse, demean or disturb things which are important. Also Indian government needs to revise the cyber law to incorporate any incidents like these. After all we are a liberal secular country. PS The geek post I talked about in last post's comments... is in the making. This is not the one.

Sweet Home Technology

2005-11-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

It has been 11 months since I started this blog and never did I talk about my family. Not once. Not in a single line. But that ends today. Here. Most of the time I write about my technological background, my ideas, my thoughts, myself.... here is a post about my family and their technological background. :) (Hope they don't mind.) But before we dive into that let me remember when was I last time home. In August, for full 24 hours and 37 minutes. When was the last time I was home for long time. Hmmmm... in March I guess for 4 days. So that was 9 months back... by now home computer must be falling apart. For lack of updates and maintenance. Whenever I am back home, computer maintenance/upgrade is a major part of schedule. Actually, cleaning of computer as well. So why is my home computer in shambles while its counterpart on my lap and at hostel room is in top notch condition. To explain let me come to my family's techno background. Mom, she is awesome. When I was in first year we tried chatting once. By the time I was done writing 15 lines all she had written was, "hi, how rea you?" So next time I went home I gave her a headset and got an internet speed upgrade so we could voice chat. Well my sister removed that for some music listening and then couldn't put them back in place. So we got back to text-chatting. (I didn't have a mobile in 1st year, my parents thought it was prohibited by seniors!!) Some how, her taking all the time in the world just to say "hello" felt like time well spent. Sister as you must have inferred from mention above is good at removing things, not putting them back. She is the bubbly kind who would check mail, leave an offliner and then move to do something else. Ask her to write a program to print "Hello World" on screen and she will give you her Dow-eye look, which makes me scream, "Well this is the last time I am doing your computer assignment." She is good at using technological things...like program the CDR or TV, but when something breaks down, she is the last person to go through manual, forget about Googling for a fix. Dad... he is royal. King of the hill. (Why else would I say I am prince). He never uses home computer. That was an expensive toy for me (and my sis, if she would use it). He uses computer at office, which is maintained by Wipro. He got a contract with Wipro... who put a ready-to-use-licensed-desktop in his office. No hassles of installing anything. No hassle of memory upgrade. Well there you have story of my family and answer to question... "Why my home computer is shabby."

Language Barrier

2005-11-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

While my laptop is getting back into shape, let me contemplate. There have been incidents where words were misinterpreted which led to lot of chaos and mayhem. There is a famous real-life story in Marathi (Peshwa, as the historians would point out) history where a change in single alphabet led to murder instead of kidnapping of a young prince. On numerous occasions my words have been misinterpreted, mis-constructed and mutilated. Till date I must have written more than million lines of code. None of it was misinterpreted by computers, no matter which computer read it. When put out of context they were simply rejected. Syntactic and syntax of the programming languages make them complex, long and cumbersome... but at the same time, fool-proof and tamper-proof as well. Human language need to be changed to the same effect. So that it is interpret in the same way. If mistakes are there it should be rejected in totality. Also it should leave no room for "lying". Came across the concept of "language of elves" in the inheritance trilogy. In the language of elves it is impossible to lie. Well at first glace it seems obscure, but look closely... you can't lie to a computer either. Can you tell a lie in Programming Language? I couldn't think of an example. Next semester I am taking a course on Programming Languages. I have already done a course on Languages, well not a course, but a part of course called Critical Thinking (under God of Humanities Department, Prof. Sanil... IITD people know him and most respect him). So it will be interesting to see and draw a comparison between computer languages and human languages.

My Computer

2005-11-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

For two days now, my laptop has been acting up. I have a desktop too, but the LAN cord for it was being used by a friend, who "borrowed" it for over 2 weeks. I am kind of person who would go on the net to download a 15MB driver update just to speed up Windows startup by 2 seconds. So, I stared feeling fever last night. Yes, I go sick when my computer is not in perfect shape. So I decided to reformat my laptop and restore it with backups. While I was hunting my friend to get my LAN cord back I decided to use my lab computer to blog. Which as my last post chronics lead into transformation of a mole-hill into mountain. (I wonder if that has got something to do with Scanning Electron Microscope that lab computer was attached to.) Finally I got my LAN cord back today in afternoon. Have found some time to restore my laptops condition. And I am feeling better already. :) PS Sorry for the physics wala SEM PJ.

With love from Anonymous...

2005-11-23T01:48:00.000-08:00

Well a lot happened in blogging world (around me) in last two days. And I would like to write about it here so that I can have a record of it. It all started when I read this post of Abhinav, in which he poked fun at cyber despos. I put up an anonymous comment pointing out that author to a certain extent falls under the same category. Nowhere did I write that "You write crap" or anything to this effect. With that comment I thought the chapter was closed. But Abhinav put up another melodramatic post the other day. No offense meant to Abhinva, but yes it was a little melodramatic. I enjoyed reading it. I smiled and I moved on. But someone impersonated me and commented again under the name, Anonymous 4m yesterday. Clearly anyone who knows me a little knows it for a fact that I don't use net-slag or sms-slang. Not even while chatting, so this post coming from me was impossible. Anyways, Sayesha blew the lid off with an eloquent lesson on how to comment. The post instilled a few thoughts and I posted them, once again as Anonymous (to continue the identity). But as soon as I was done commenting I realized that many people prefer to ask who said it instead of what was said. So I thought it was time to give a name to Mr. Anonymous. Also, to prove the fact that I hold no personal grudge against either of them, which was being speculated. My whole point was to show that while you are pulling other people's leg (calling them despos and what not) just take a look at yourself. This whole episode reminds me of two episodes in my short blogging life. Episode 1) I did the same rookie mistake of poking fun at an a person. Very soon it was pointed out to me that making fun of others on a place like blog where they can't give reason for their actions is not a very "fun" way to act. I respected the opinion and pulled down the post (for the first time). I found the reasoning convincing. May be others didn't. I don't mind. Episode 2) I wrote a bad review for Batman Begins(BB). In comments an anonymous blogger said that my review didn't have substance or basis. To which I gave reasons as to why I didn't like the movie (reason: it doesn't fit the comic book character development.) To which he pointed out that it was based on Year One. I went out in the evening brought Year One, read it back to back, posted as to how Year One and BB don't have anything in common. The guy said the movie was excellent in terms of cinematography, which I totally granted to him. The debate went over to IMDB and Rotten Tomato... to make a long story short, I had a very meaningful discussion and never came to know the real name of the guy. He pointed out flaws in my post and I accepted them graciously, instead of trying to turn the table on him by saying, "I don't make you pay for reading my review" or "this is my blog, I will write what I will." Immature statements like these don't make you grow. Value the opinion not the mouth that gives it. Just to sum it up... I value all the comments, irrespective of who is saying. Even if it is moral policing. I bear no personal grudge toward Abhinav or Sayesha. Now you know why I took a stand which I took.

Ungrateful

2005-11-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

Recently I came across a community on Orkut called "F*** India". Which has a not-so-eloquent description section, where the owner of community goes on to say Indians are most pathetic people on face of earth among many other things. He hates Hindu Fundamentalist (so do I) but assuming all Indians are one, is stretching the limits. Needless to say, location of community is our 55-year-old neighbor Pakistan. Though Pakistan may not be anywhere near India in terms of economic growth, strategic position in UN, share of global trade, etc. the members of community find Pakistan far better. Anyways, as always I disregard unsubstantiated claims of superiority and would have moved on, had I not seen (lets call him) Traitor's photo on front page. Till date I held Mr.Traitor in high regards, though his degree is extended beyond prescribed time, for his skills in a certain field and attitude towards life. To think a guy from India, studying in INDIAN Institute of Technology (proudly called IIT) would join such a community was beyond possibilities. Agreed that India has its problems -which I point out often- and may not be the best country to live in, but it has given me, my parents and my ancestors so much that I can't even think of being ungrateful to it. It taught me to fight in face of adversities. Gave a job to my father. Provided me shelter, education, values and many more things. No Mr.Traitor... fuck you! For being such an ungrateful person. Hopefully you will be mixed with next batch of prisoners of war and thrown back into Pakistan.

Pradyot... yes sir!

2005-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

This just came in. And it has blown my mind away. For the lazy bones, here is a summary. An Engineering Physics final year student at IITB, who is good at computer and had made an intralan system, committed suicide! Reason being, his degree was extended because he failed... not because of poor academic performance but because his attendance was short. This is like reading my own story minus the death, of course. I am in Engineering Physics final year, IITD. Good at computers (I am good enough to get a minor degree in CS) and I also contributed a lot in establishing Direct Connect clients and hubs for intralan sharing in our campus. I am faring well in academics, but lagging in attendance!! Is this a scary coincidence or all IITians live same life? Hopefully this story kicks some dirt and all IITs relax their attendance criterion. In fact I don't even get it. Why do we even need attendance? Are we 7 year old kids who need monitoring? No, we are supposed to be mature responsible people. Then why don't we attend classes. Let me narrate a scenario from my real life experience. It was in winter semesters and we had class on Computer Arch. (CA) early in morning at 8. In Delhi (for people who have never been in Delhi on winter mornings), during winters, we have heavy fog. It is thick enough to get attention of national media and delay trains/fligts by hours. The CA class was taken in Studio (for it was recorded and telecasted on India's national education channel). Studio had a seating capacity of 47 people and there were 52 people registered in the course. If we reached class 5 minutes past 8, the late comers had to sit in the recording station and see the lecture on TV, for the class was already full! All 47 seats occupied. The prof. didn't even take attendance... he was confident enough that his teaching was powerful enough to attract students. So if your institute has to make stringent rules about attendance, you have under performing teachers, for they are incapable of attracting students into good learning. Or students find it uneconomical to attend a class of one hour. They think they can learn a lot much more in same time span. Thus solution is not to make more strict rules... they will only lead to incidents like these. The solution is to make learning and lectures more engaging and attractive.

Unnn... best to my knowledge?

2005-11-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Recently came across a resume with a line in footer, which read, "All the information provided is best to my knowledge".... huh? What is that supposed to mean? The objective stated on resume is 'best to your knowledge'. This is where "culture capital" (a buzz word made popular by last year's CAT paper) plays the role. People who are making resume for the first time... who come from small villages (yes quite few students come from remote parts of India) and have parents who never made resume.. find themselves at mercy of friends. There is a limit to what friends can do for you. They are students after all. Not people who have been in corporate world half their life. After making my resume I sent it to a Managing Director, a Project Leader of Design, a self-made multi-millionaire and a Project Leader in GE for scrutiny. They made subtle changes but it made the difference. My point is not to embarrass students who hail from small places, but there should be some system... some seminars should be conducted as to how resumes should be made. How interviews should be faced. Everyone can't have professional help and an institute like IITs can spare resources to give their students an edge. In fact IITD had a seminar conducted by a job search portal to give pointers as to how resume should be made. But still a lot needs to be done. To the best of my knowledge IITK, IITKgp and IITG didn't had any such seminar or workshop. IITs' administration should look into the matter. Unrelated Earlier people had to do a lot of work. They had to BUZZ me thrice in a minute or write 5 lines of complete gibberish like "gjfoigpgapb,dpfbapb,fb,apkrb034b0b" on my IM window, to earn their way into my ignore list. Nowadays it entry has become simpler, you just have to ask one simple question. You what it is, right?

Long lost friend

2005-11-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

A long lost (or so I thought) friend got in touch today. He searched "Pradyot Ghate" on Google and came to this blog. He wasn't sure if it was me, I have changed over last 7 years or so and so has the my face. Ideas have changed. Topics I talk about have changed. So he was little skeptical about getting in touch, but then how many Pradyot(s) are there. Add to that 'Ghate' and the odds are high enough to beat 1-to-6-billion. Anyways, to make a long story short... he added me on gtalk. I responded and we got chatting. Wow! so much time has passed since last time we met. He is a completely different guy. I am completely different guy. But we talked and talked (don't tell me I am supposed to study for CAT). It was fun. There was so much to talk about though there is nothing common between us now... except for memories. It's good that the blog is not just helping me make new friends... but also reunite with old friends.

Please respect my privacy

2005-11-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

I hate people who ask personal questions. My parents know it and thus never ask any such question like "Who are you seeing these days?", "Who is that girl with you in picture?", "Who is throwing the party tonight?", etc. etc. If I think it is appropriate for them to know about something, I will let them know on my own accord. Similar is the case with friends. I hate it when people ask me, "What's your Grade Point Avg?" (unless they are willing to give me a salary of 5lac p.a.) They usually get a non-verbal reply... stern mean look. Today evening I was called vindicated, mean and... well I forgot the 3rd adjective, but it sure wasn't in praise. So here is a fair warning. After couple of hours I will be taking CAT. After coming back I may evaluate how I did, but the first person to ask me my score is either going to get a) a sucker punch in ribs b) pepper sprayed in eye c) kicked in any place I can reach There will be absolutely no bias/relaxation in punishment based on person's race, gender, age, he/she wears glasses, ______ (fill in other criterions of discrimination you can think of). I will let everyone know what my score and percentile is... when I am ready. And the day may never occur... so don't hold your breath. Who am I kidding? No one in world is so free as to wonder and speculate what an insignificant guy got! PS Changed the title of the post to a line from Lindsay Lohan's Rumor

Giving it for the last time....

2005-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I won't lie by saying I am giving CAT for first time. I gave it as a trial thing last year (when I was in 3rd year). Just to gauge myself. But after approximately 67 hours I will take it for final time. So what if I don't get through it this time? Well I will move on. Take up a job (I have decided not to go for MS or PhD, not now) and do it for couple of years. Then try for MBA in US, through GMAT. I can't take a test twice, seriously. I give it one shot, if I am not the material they are looking to fill the mould; I don't want to get in either. So guys and girls, wish me luck. If everything goes well I may be studying in an IIM soon if not I will be studying at some Ivy League in distant future. PS I don't want to boast or anything. Just that someday when looking back I would like to see how much I came along as per plan.

Of damn lies and moralities

2005-11-17T01:25:00.000-08:00

Jonny jonny...yes papa... eating sugar... no papa... telling lies? Is it ok to lie? Earlier this September, Steve Job, now CEO of Apple (for uninitiated), was saying that iPod Video was a bad idea as market was not ready for personal video machines. Then he (Apple) went out to release iPod Video. Google uses the word, "Transparency", all the time. It has a transparent corporate structure (so we are told) but what about people looking from outside? I don't think it is transparent. Well these are corporate lies and to a certain extent they are justified. I mean it is business not charity. It is a dog-eat-dog world and you can't tell what's cooking. So are lies justified in personal individual life? Take this example. A friend of yours is about to walk into an interview room. He asks, "How do I look?" Do you tell him that in my opinion your hair look like a turned over cuckoo's nest and make him lose his confident? Or do you give him a confident smile and wish him luck? Another one... If your female friend asks you, "Am I fat?" Do you say yes and enter the realms of hell or you just say "NNNoooo!!" and make her feel good? I think it is ok to lie, if that makes a person feel good, help him/her. If it saves a life (I didn't wanted to give the age old example of pointing-the-murderer-in-right-direction). So do you tell lies?

Lost

2005-11-17T01:04:00.000-08:00

I am a very methodical person. I usually don't lose track of my stuff. In 2 years of kinder garden, 12 years of schooling and 3 years of college... I have lost 1 water bottle (in my 2nd year), 1 bucket (in 1st year) and 1 Java book. That is it! Till yesterday. Yesterday, I lost my PDA. I am not worried about losing $200 gadget or losing the information it had. Because I was going to upgrade next year (after getting a job) anyway. It was my money (not my dad's) so no regrets. I always have backups of information so that is not a concern either. What worries me is the extent of damage it can cause if put in wrong hands. It had some personal notes, which are secured by password, but the address book... pictures of gfs, friends and family... are on it. Unprotected! Hopefully the person accidentally press RESET button before starting it.

Tagging all the way...

2005-11-16T01:27:00.000-08:00

This is the 3rd time I have been tagged. This time it is a long one... 20 random things about myself. It is going to be long, but I will try not to make it boring... let's see how many make it to the end. Here goes... 1) I like watching movies like Shawshank Redumption or TV series like Prison Break, where inmate tries to break through the jail. Some how it is thrilling to watch a person break the system... manipulate the psyche of peers... trying something impossible. 2) I am a huge fan of OS X. Thing is Apple doesn't have support of many software companies... and I don't like giving up my options. Also, I am too well versed with Windows now. 3) I wanted be an IAF pilot. I even gave NDA entrance, got All India Rank 3 and was informed that my choice to join NDA-Air Force wing will be accepted if I passed the medical test. The catch was, yy the time results for entrance exams and call for fitness test came in, I was already preparing for my first minors in IITD. Never looked back. 4) I wrote my first (and probably last) poem when I was in class 6th. It was an attempt to poke fun at Indian Political System. (This is where you saw "wow", being impressed that I knew about politics and wrote poem in class 6th.) 5) I am highly disappointed by the intelligence I have. I mean their are people who can factorize 32 digit numbers in split second, remember every single piece of information they ever saw, design complex algorithms based on mathematical models in limit time, etc. I wanted something of that magnitude. 6) I wonder about stupid things like... why do they give physical before executing a person? I mean why see if the man is perfectly healthy before killing him! Where did Big Bang take place? I mean if universe is expanding, according to Set Theory, their should be a larger set for a subset to grow, so their should be something bigger than universe. And many more questions like these take a lot of time of my day. 7) I can type 85+ characters a minute... without using backspace more than 1-2 time. I am a fast guy at keyboard, though I never took one typing class. 8) I have two computers in my one hostel room. Also I own a wireless router to hook them up with campus network. I like working on networks and computers... so I have got two. I am a prince ;) 9) All through the day I am wishing/demanding/planning for something, but when I am in a temple, in front of God... I don't ask for anything. Just don't feel like asking for anything. I find peace and content there. 10) I am a lousy teacher... very very lousy... no patience at all. This is only thing about me that disappoints my dad. He wants me to be a good mentor to other people... help them with my knowledge. Wow!! I am half way there 11) I get happy with small achievements, but never lose sight of large ones. I crave for power... I want to be strongest and I don't mean physically. Also, if I could change one thing about my looks, it would be... nothing. I like the way I look. 12) I hate redundant people. Those who don't read books (non-academic) and talk meaningless stuff all the time. It is ok to take a break from books and goof around once in blue moon. But you can't go on discussing about girls, bollywood movies, etc. for life. 13) I sleep with my mobile phone at arms length and laptop on side stool. So I can reach both of them as soon as I wake up. Or work while lying in bed. :) Everyone is inherently lazy (IMO) and I am no exception. 14) According my friends I am a good cook. My relatives think my cooking is decent (because they know my mom). But I think there is room for improvement. I can cook Indian, Continental and little bit of Chinese. I want to learn French dishes.. I like French dishes. I know a little about wines and dishes they go with. 15) I love black coffee. I prefer black over normal/Cappuccino. I like my coffee with a ting of cream and no sugar. Best black coffee I ever had was on Lufthansa's flight. 16) I follow teen sensations, technology news and a lot of other stuff. I read approximately 150 RSS feed each day. I have all the RSS feed stored in a database and I can do advance searching/filtering on it. 17) Though I appear to be a reckless, princely guy with no care... I plan every single step of life very meticulously. I can't live life "as it comes". I have to control it. I got to plan it and keep an exit strategy as backup. I am paranoid and a control freak. 18) About a year ago my ENT guy told me that either I stop listening to Rock or turn the volume down... else I will go deaf at 25. I tried turning volume down... Rock wasn't same.. so I stopped listening. I value my ears. 19) I have extra sensitive nose. But it is nothing compared to what my sis has. She can smell something burning (and tell precisely what is burning) a mile away. I can tell only half a mile away. Seriously. But this extra sensitivity comes at a cost... my nose starts bleeding if I go to very hot places (like Rajasthan or Delhi in summer afternoon). This is also one reason I want to move to NYC. :) 20) I can lie very well. But none of the things I said above is lie. Tada... done! Well congratz to me for completing it. And congratz to you for making it through. Now the part where I kick someone, pepper spray and push in front of a speeding truck a.k.a passing the tag on. So these people have got to do it... Nidhi, Viveka, Jetru, Anchal and KD. I have chosen people I don't know very well, so that I get to know them more. If these 5 ignore or reject the request (read command) I will hunt them down in my leather shoes with a pepper spray in a monster truck. Muhahahahha....

True Genius

2005-11-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

"Prison Break", the new 22 episode series on Fox is a combination of The Shawshank Redemption(Movie) and The Thirty-Nine Steps(Book). A conspiracy plot intertwined with jailbreak. Anyways, this post is not about the series, but I came across definition of true genius. By "genius" I don't mean someone who can tell if a 6 digit number is prime or how will general relativity translate in a 6 dimension universe. I mean this is just high IQ. A genius is someone like da Vinci... an engineer, innovator and artist. This is how a psychiatrist from Prison Break puts it... an artistic guy is hypersensitive to his environment and acts weird because he cannot process everything he senses, but if he has a high IQ to match it... he is true genius in every possible sense. He becomes not only hypersensitive to his surroundings but can interpret it and react accordingly. If there is such a person he can perceive and interpret paintings, music, maths, poetry, scientific theory... absolutely anything. It is like having an extra sensitive keyboard, 720dpi optical mouse with 30GHz processors with 100GB ram. You get the picture... right? Super sensitive sensors and super crunching processor. I wanted to be someone like that. I have a decent IQ and sensitive nose but that is it. :(

Eligible Bachelor

2005-11-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Before getting on with agenda of the day, I had a deja vu today, which I would like to share. Well it is not exactly deja vu, as it was not an event- it's a song, 'Somebody like you' by Keith Urban. Feels like I have heard it somewhere... sometime.. but can't locate time and place. Do you believe in past life and continued memory? Anyways, it is on my year's "Highly recommended 10 songs" list. Now on with the post... In case you were born and brought up nowhere near south east Asia you may not know this so read closely, others may skip to next paragraph. In India, when a girl reaches a certain age (depends upon community, class, education of parents and the girl herself the limit is fixed) she is made to pose for a photo, which is then sent to kins and not-so-kin aunties, who forward it to families of eligible bachelors. In case the guy's family approve height, weight, color, looks, education, family background, god-knows-what-else of the girl they visit the to-be-daughter-in-law's place where talks summon over tea. Placement time is very similar. A graduating student sends in his resume to Training and Placement Cell who in-turn forward them to companies. Companies -like boy's parent- closely scrutinize the applicant... the eligible bachelor... and if he is good enough, visit the campus for talk/interview. Being Indian male from an educated unorthodox family, I may never get to go through the former procedure, so I am enjoying this opportunity. It is so much fun to get all dressed up, take a picture, make resume and then send them. The interview round haven't started yet, but it will be more fun, I assume. After going through this I have to totally disagree with the feminist claims that afore mentioned match making procedures are objectionable as they objectify the girl in question. Well I don't feel objectified when submitting a resume with my photo and all the credentials. What is more shocking is that "modern" girls who find the procedure of match making objectionable, find beauty pageants glamorous! Anyways, that is not the topic of the day. On further thoughts, I think the procedure is more like a swayamwar, where all eligible princes ask a princess' hand in marriage and the princess chooses her husband. Yes, it is a more suitable analogy. The eligible bachelors apply for a company and the company chooses the person they deem fit. Whatever analogies one may draw, the fact remains that placement procedures do not objectify a person (not in my view at least) and it is lot of fun.

Resume Material

2005-11-13T01:22:00.000-08:00

What do you write in a resume? The question become harder when the person asking for them says, "Write anything you are proud of!" Wow there are so many things to write. I came 1st in a 100mt race in class 6th, have won a cooking competition, scored 100% in mathematics in 8th State Board, had a dog who could fetch newspaper (with his teeth mark on it), etc. But then the guy says, "Make it one page" and poof goes your dreams of boasting about having a gf as early as in class 9th. So what do you write? Well in my interest I mentioned this blog and through this blog all the people who read it, critic it or adore it. Why you ask? Well a) I love writing... had not been in IIT I would be in BA (Eng) course... an aspiring author or journalist. b) I am proud of this blog. I have scribbled about my fond memories of Canada trip, my freakish gizmo shopping-sprees, days when I was down. Not just my personal rants, I have also written about technologies in development, change in Web (2.0, as it is being called now) interface, predicted fluctuations of share market and analyzed economies of the world... so it has been an intellectual attempt as well. But what I love most about this blog is the avenue it provided and continues to provide to befriend new people every day. Though I may not know them by face, I know them a lot better through their blogs than most of their real-world peers might be knowing them. It's been a tiring day, reading other's resume... recommending changes... getting feedback on my own resume...making appropriate change. But it was fun all the way... an experience full of learning. Hopefully it will make an impression on the reader as well. If not, I will wake up with a smile tomorrow anyways. Death of Legend Peter Drucker was not only a management guru and the person who coined management terms. He was a man of vision. Vision for success. At the ripe age of 95 he died leaving behind him a legacy of knowledge and mantras which will be cherished by many generations. Seen as father of modern management, he stressed on drive and innovation. His words of wisdom were not limited to classrooms of Claremont Graduate University, but spread around the world and were followed by many. I have had a good fortune of reading his books and listening to his lectures. He preferred not to call them lectures though. May he rest in peace.

How much fun is enough?

2005-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

The post was posted as blank due to some error with blogger. Thanks to Jetru who posted the orignal blog in the comment section so I can repost it. What I mean to ask is... can a person die of having fun? You can die with overdose of cyanide... drug abuse... and 100 other things. But can a person die of excessive fun. Because if yes, I better slow down. Side note: Why do they say (during weddings), "...till death do you apart." The priest should say, "...till death or an evil team of 2 advocates and a judge do you apart" Anyways, while on my streak of enjoying the day...I came across one guy, I have bumped into him (or rather, his blog) many times in the avenues and side lanes of blogging world.. but this was first time in real world. His first reaction, "You look so different!" I thought for a moment... should I take this as a compliment or not? Anyways I said with a smile, "What did you expect me to be? Some guy with glasses and Einstein's hairstyle?" "No what I meant was, you look different in the pic." Huh? What's wrong with my pic? I am not of that dark complexion.. it's probably the bad photography + grayscale. I gave a feeble smile. He added, "I mean the pic is upside down." Duh! What are you expecting people? I am a guy who has upside down head and the pic is straight. Though it will be fun to have an upside down head. Food-pipe going through the space between two hemispheres of brain. So every time you swallow, it will give you a terrible headache. So everyone will eat less.. and will be slim and trim! And all the smokers can finally use their nostrils just like chimneys! Efficient exhaust always reduces probability of TB (at least in case passive smokers). Well for the moment I can't think of any more advantages... can you? PS Recently some one asked me "How many RSS/Atom feed do you read?" I neither have the patience or time to count them, but I would approximate them in vicinity of 150. (I have to search through them... can't read all!!) RACE-ing ahead Are we? Are we racing ahead in terms of civilization? The French riots beg to differ. The same woes of racial discriminations, electrocuting the minorities and minorities in turn flaming property... welcome to the country of liberty and freedom. The country that gifted the "Statue of Liberty" to the world. French society may tout about it's ideas of liberty but the current scenario in Paris definitely speaks volume against it. A suburban area full of minority, police and political force dominated by whites and two dead black bodies was all it took for return Paris to year 1968. The "Egalitarianism" model of society that France has, seems more or less to be for "French Only." It is like repeating Orwell's words, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." So all humans are equal, but French natives are more equal than others. The Government, as usual, is at a fault (in my not-at-all-humble onion). The government has not insured that immigration is checked and the successful immigrants are employed and well-fed. Racial discrimination is a global phenomena, from Bihar to New York and Patna to Paris, but never did the fabric of humanity ripped apart so badly. After giving the world art and ideas of liberty, French have failed -and miserably at that- in providing a decent living to immigrants.

A talk to remember

2005-11-09T04:07:00.000-08:00

I had this conversation with a female collegue of mine who has an unholy amount of memory. I don't know why I say unholy, I just feel it is not human to be able to remember name, face, phone number, address, height, weight, waist size, shirt size, date of birth, etc. for every single person you know. I mean name and face is what I do... but that is it. So let's call her "P"... wait that is confusing... let's give her handle "M" (for memory) in this transcript and I will be "P". Prad: I don't think humans need memory any more. I mean of course we need memory to remember where we are going or where do we live. Or the home phone number. Ms Memory: Then what do you mean? You need to remember people and their phone numbers, date of birth, etc. *bewildered* Prad: What I mean is, we don't need to remember everything about a person, just name and face will do. So that I can say, "Hi P!" when we meet. Why do I need to remember your date of birth... I mean I have it stored on my yahoo calander, which sends me a reminder 48 hours before hand so I can get a present and everything. I have a mobile which has your number stored in it.. so that I can call you and wish you. If I need to reach your place I have the address on my PDA. And my next PDA will have a GPS so that I have a map and route that I can follow to reach your place! But that was not my point when I said we don't need memory. M: *bored sigh* what was your point? P: *all excited to finally have audiance to his ideas* My point was why do we need to remember formula for signal to noise ratio? Or Maxwell's equations? Or formula for Tetranitropentanol? I can always use Google! Simply type in "Signal to noise ratio for multimode fiber" and viola, everything is right there. All I need is an Internet connection. They should change education system and examination pattern. Exams should be more innovation driven than value substitution driven. They should provide us with a problem and a terminal to Internet... and let us go crazy with it. Come up with multi-colored solutions. M: What if you were to teach in a African village as a part of social service? Won't you be required to teach "Thermal irradiation" and need to remember value of Plack's constant? P: If they don't have access to Internet, "Thermal irradiation" is not their biggest problem to ponder on. First get a telephone line and then go into establishing a school of higher education. M: I have to go. I have meeting with my project guide. Conclusions: a) I talk too much. b) I use very long sentences. Grammatically incorrect at times. c) I am too much addicted to Internet, Google, Wikipedia, etc. d) I am not good at remembering formulas, equations, values of constants, date of births, etc. e) I can remember conversations verbatim... even after many hours. f) Either I am a visionary or a complete insane idiot. Probability of being later is lot higher.

A bad day... grrr...

2005-11-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I knew I had a hectic day today. There was one presentation (and that is a big thing as we are not MBA students who give 2 presentations a day) and one assignment submission. What I did not know what this... hectic days even if meticulously planned can very easily convert into bad days. This is one I will remember for rest of my life.. and the lessons I learnt today. So I woke up and started working on my presentation. I had asked R to make arrangement for refreshment (as I had done for him), who had very conveniently pushed the responsibility on S. [Lesson #1 No matter how much you help a person, he may turn you down.] So I got in touch with S, told him it was at 4pm. He said lets ditch it and we can have a smaller party of selected few. Well we always do that, have parties among friends... but party during Colloquium is fun (about which as you may have read it here) and I wanted that! So he told me he will be ordering food at about 2, as it takes 2 hours to get things in place. At 4 when he didn't turn up, I called only to hear, "I thought it was at 5." "Where are you?", I inquired. "In hostel, I will order it now" [Lesson #2 People are inherently lazy.] "Don't bother, it won't be in time." And I hanged on him. [Lesson #3 Have less talented but more loyal friends than just talented friends.] Anyways, presentation went ok. When people asked for treat I straight away refused. If it was a colloquium treat it had to be in colloquium, not afterwards. If you are good to attend the after party you are good to make arrangement. I was bent on not letting their plan of having a party for small group succeed. I was successful. I am always successful in individual pursuits. Anyways, a very close friend of mine said, "Yaar tension na le.. chal khane chalte hai." I was not going to pay... so I decided to go along, no point in missing dinner over a f***ing lazy moron. But when the same lazy moron turned up for the dinner I couldn't hold it and I let go. I told him how disappointing his display of friendship was, how irresponsible he was, his excuses about not getting the time right were pathetic, etc. He smirked. And that added 10 Gallons of petrol to the fire. The bastard was not even sorry. [Lesson #4 People are not marshmallows with soft feelings, they bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.] I walked away after a few more heated words. Most important lesson of the day: Never count on people, they are unreliable lazy f**ks. Rely on machines. My current friend circle is highly talented and competitive, but I should rather have true friends who will make my events better, rather than trying to bump them. My dad always keeps saying, "Success comes from mediocre." He said that when I topped Math exams. When I went for National level Astronomy Olympiad. When I got through JEE. He always said that. Now I know why. Because highly talented people are selfish. They are not team players and will push other people out of their way to go ahead. Till you are of use to them, they will be good to you... but that is end of the road. And the first rule to be successful is to be a team player. To give back to the team that helped you. Once a girl told me that I should surround myself with people rather than machines that make my life efficient. She told me that though they make me more successful, I don't want to be alone. But is it not better to have no-team than a team that desserts you at last moment. That day I gave her multiple reasons why I prefer machines over men... today I have many more. Life goes on... and the show goes on as well. We take a fall and we learn. PS As for the news, I will not be able to make it through for next 48 hours as well. Why? Will tell you at the end of 48 hours. Speculations are welcome :) (Needless to say, most innovative get a surprise!)

Sex at work

2005-11-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

If I have time for only one series in whole week, I watch "The Apprentice". Though the season is full of non-professional competitors this time, few informative comments from Trump makes it worth 45 minutes. But this time it is not about Donald. In this week's episode teams were to make an informative presentation about any topic (of their choice) to a group of people. One team chose topic, "Sex at work". The project manager was all shy-like-Indian and non-verbal about it. It was fun watching an American-Jew choked on words like sex and STD, just like our desi bhaiya. That made me wonder why are we so up tight about the topic anyway? I mean it's a normal thing... everyone has or does it! Then why are we so shy to talk about it? For example, let me narrate what happened in my Bio-class, grade 10th. There is a chapter on human reproductive system in class 10th and being adolescent curiously-numb-brain kids are, we were looking forward to it most. It was going to be first formal talk on something that we talked in secret. And when the turn for the chapter came every single person, boy or girl, was present that day... except for one. The female teacher. Some how she had managed to take leave for a week and on return told us the chapter was not important (or other chapters were more important and needed to be covered) from 10th Board point of view. If educators are so dumb-witted it is no wonder our society keeps the subject taboo and in dark rooms. And all that is generated around the topic are myths, misconnects and what-nots. Moral Dilemma What do you do when face with a question of doing right and doing easy? I try to be right but in this case I can't be. Let's say I know a girl A and a boy B, equally well. I knew them even before they started going out together. And thus I know how good and pure hearted A is, while B is a bastard who thinks only about sex, drinking and smoking (yes, people like these do prevail in IIT). B flirts with every single girl he meets... even though he keeps saying that he is committed to A. The matter would have been ok had A been equally racy, but she is not. So what would you do if you were in my shoes? Tell A and destroy the possibility of B improving his habits and thus say with me "Love doesn't improve anything, it's just a stupid thing made up by Hallmark to sell their cards." Or take the chance of not telling and letting A get more committed into deeper relationship and have the possibility that she would be more badly hurt? Update I have a presentation tomorrow and a programming assignment deadline... both of which were to be done over the holiday week, needless to say, I did not do. So I better buckle up and do them... so no fun-poking obscure geeky news today.

Free v/sProprietary

2005-11-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

Recently published studies showed that Wikipedia.org raised more money for their upgrades and funding through donation than MS Encarta or Britannica (software version) did during same duration. This raises a very important question... why are we being charged in the first place under copyrights and royalties? Gaim, Wikipedia, Linux (before distros of different levels like Personal, Enterprise, Server, etc. hit the shelf) are free. Most of these run on donations and developers/administrators draw salary from trusts established from these donations. So why do companies "sell" their product? If the product is good (and every company likes to believe it has a good product) make it free for all and people will donate to you whenever the need be. Moving I have decided to move this blog to a new domain... a domain registered to myself. So that I have full customizability over it. KD has suggested a domain name, which is wacky and all. You all have known me for quite some time now, through this blog or other wise. Please suggest a domain name which is: a) Humorous, a little wacky, but should pass for official stuff like putting on resume b) should reflect my IT-inclined (in other words geeky) side. c) Should connect to me, Pradyot! I will post name of all the domain names suggested (if they are not in use already registered) in my next post. KD's suggestion will be posted then as I do not want to introduce a prejudice in the system by telling it now. Oh and the person who suggest best domain name (which I will use, of course) gets a treat!! PS I would prefer it if you send me the suggestions over yahoo messenger (pradyot_g) or gtalk/gmail (titan[DOT]pradyot[AT]gmail[DOT]com) as bots are always searching for domain names in discussion and companies register them first, to get money by selling them. And I don't want to miss a nice domain name just because some greedy corporate overheard/read comments on this blog. Read somewhere "Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi That goes for OS's too. When it comes to security someone saying that something is possible should raise an eyebrow, and someone saying that something is impossible should be ignored. The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally. I drink to make other people look interesting. Update Amzon Upgrade Threatened by Google's Print Project Amazon is making desperate attempts to hold on to it's market share of books, which directly translates into more value for our money. After decision of selling books by page Amazon is now planning to sell books in e-book format. So when you buy a book (price will be less hopefully, as there is not cost of printing/package/delivery) it gets added to your personal library at Amazon, which you can access from any browser from anywhere in the world. You library goes with you to all the places. Till Amazon declares prices of e-book version of books I own, I am keeping my stash of pirated ebooks. (Forbe's article here and don't worry I was just kidding, I have no pirated ebooks, please don't raid my room.) Support to my ideas The idea of Freeware Open source being better is not exactly supported but rather development is promoted in a report[PDF file] by economist Dean Baker. All hail the Nazi beaters... This is a statue now placed in Yahoo!'s office. The plaque reads (Of course without the bold face, that is my introduction):

Presented to the Yahoo! Mail Team by the good people of Yahoo! in recognition of tremendous intellectual efforts put forth in order to defeat Gmail. Not since the code breakers in Britain's Bletchley Park deciphered Germany's Enigma code during World War II has so much brainpower been focused on kicking an enemy's ass. The Yahoo! Mail Team's bravery, courage, and cumulative intelligence will not soon be forgotten. (At least not until the next version of Yahoo! Mail is released.)

Huh? I mean HUH?? The last time checked Yahoo! was getting a bad beating in terms of revenue and user base. Here in India either we are getting a sub-standard version of Yahoo! mail or Yahoo! has got some super-egoistic morons. Either ways I am not happy. And what is so brave about sitting in a cubicle writing code? May be this is just a way Yahoo! is trying to counter New York Times article, Just Googling it is striking terror where retail giant, Wal-Mart, CEO is saying that at Wal-Mart they keep a queer eye on Google moves. Google's project Froogle could be a potential silent assassin to retail chains. Well, Google is working while Yahoo! is self-pampering. The Korea Herald reports that a 8 year old kid talks about defying laws of Gravity and designing flying cars. So what? I did the same when I was 8.... made humans fly (superman... duh!). But this little guy is doing it the Physics-style. He has already completed his schooling (at the age of 8) and is going to join a university now. Great! Another math nerd who never had a girl friend during college. :p

Sales numbers and IITians

2005-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

It may be a little late for me to comment, but considering the fact that I have been busy - and not watching TV for once - I hope you will excuse me. After a long expected corrective measure to save grace and bring back the TRP, which were dwindling because of bad (read rotten) competition between the candidates, to his show Donald Trump fired 4 people in one go last week. This was the first time in 4 seasons. Well the team lost miserably with a negative score for the first time as well. Instead of increasing sale they actually lowered it (by 34%)!! Well it was required... the show was getting into another survivor politics show... instead of business acumen/talent show. Every time people found themselves in Board Room they were trying to prove why they are eligible as "The Apprentice". And though it is nice to have an eye on long term goal... they were slitting throats instead of working on tasks at hand. Another surprise of the day was to hear about a sales-meeting happening at IITD. For three months now, students have been making a proactive sales in a force-chain-model merchandise in campus. The sales target (or membership target) for three months was 32, at the end of which they would get something like Rs.16,000 or something. Fairly steep for full time students with engineering background...eh? Well some of them have already made more than 300 (yes number of zeros is right) members already! (And this is exactly why IITians are hired for consultancy and sales job, despite the lack of experience or formal education in the field.) Before you ask I will answer. How much did I earn? Zilch, because I didn't take part. Haven't got time and I already get pocket money in 5-figures from my parents, so I don't need to work or anything. So when MBAs and hard core sales people selected from millions of applicants fail miserably in shows like "Apprentice" what makes geeky full time students with no sales background so successful. What I have observed is that IITians think in 360 degrees. What I mean is that given a problem (irrespective of category) they will approach it from multiple directions. Then mix and match the solutions they obtained from following earlier directions to develop and explore new directions. And though most of us don't do it in academic projects, we do it once in a while when something interests us. Enough self-praise. Sorry. But this is hard ground reality which I have observed. When most people are done exploring solutions they select the best. They don't mix and match found solutions to come up with better solutions, which is the key to better solutions. Update Google got competition. After Google restarted its Print Project, Amazon has also declared that it will be doing something similar. Instead of just selling complete book, Amazon will be selling books by pages. So you can buy a particular chapter from a book, read it and if you like it you can buy the rest of the book. Nice concept. Also they have no legal issues with this as page-wise royalty will be given and they have a broader connection base with Publishing Houses. After BitDefender it is Mozilla time. Mozilla has announced a competition in which developers have to "Extend Firefox" by making a innovative plug-in for Firefox 1.5 (Firefox 1.5 RC 1 here) Nanowrimo No it is not a tech thingy with nanotechnology. It is National Novel Writing Month (Na-No-Wri-Mo). During the month of November approximately 60 thousand people will attempt to write a 50,000-word novel. This is seventh annual Nanowrimo and winners from last years have walked away hand in hand with big-name publishers. Will you attempt it? Errata Yesterday, I said EA is making first game out of Sports genre, which is not the case. They have already made "The Sims" and "Bond: From Russia with Love". Update Deux Honey, remind me in 20 years... Forbes is accepting emails you would like to send to yourself in 5 or many 20 years. They call it E-mail time capsule, where in you can seal a message with an email address attached to it and it will be delivered to the email address after number of years you sealed it for. Before you seal a mushy little email with your bf/gf's email on it... think about it... 20 years is a long time. You don't want embarrassing memories of break-up to trigger in your ex. Or do you? Blogger is now providing "Moderate comments" facility where in you can allow certain people to post comments freely while others will require your approval to get posted. Nice facility, but I would rather keep it open. New people are always welcome. PS. I am looking for a web hosting and domain name registration service within Delhi (so that I can pay for it over the counter in cash, instead of getting into hassles of credit card payments.) Moderate demands: PHP, FTP, 1-3 email addresses, support for CMS I chose, 99% uptime, moderate bandwidth usage and web space. Any recommendations?

Cultural exchange

2005-11-03T12:36:00.000-08:00

This post of K initiated a chain of thoughts and memories in me. When I was in Canada during this summer I met a girl from Pune (here onwards referred to as N) who was there for her internship as well. She was a sweet and helpful girl with only one annoying thing... a little too proud to be Indian. Dishing out a peice of India to everyone, even when no one was asking for it. My principle of life has been, "When in Rome, act like Roman." All this culture-exchange is new-age shit just like Feng-shui, vastu and blind dates. Why you ask? Let me narrate an event and you shall know. So after one week of my stay, N declares that she would like to host a Indian Culture Night, with my co-operation of course. Out of politeness, as she had helped me a lot with grocery shopping and other stuff and also because of the prospect of meeting new people, I agreed. She made me in charge of decoration and said she will manage cooking. For the deco, I deiced to put up an Indian flag and ribbons of red (didn't get saffron), white and green color. For the dinner I was expecting one Indian dish backed up by 2-3 Canadian/Continental dishes. I was in for a big surprise. She had planned out a complete Indian dinner, with daal, chicken Muglai, rayta and [instant] parathas brought from a local Indian shop. Instant parathas crashed and burned without even taking a breath. There was something wrong with them... they tasted more like boiled newspaper than parathas. Good that we realized this before and replaced them with bread. The last time these Americans/Canadians had taken a mouthful of cereals was when they were flattened, sugar-coated and packed in a box by Kellogg's. If something falls in packet of curd, they prefer to put it down the drain instead of throats, so skeptical looks towards rayta were predicatable. As for the chicken Muglai... well it was a little too bland to be called Indian (N toned it down taking American tolereance limit of spices into consideration) yet spicy and hot enough to humble these US-cusine-eaters and bring them crying to their knees. As if all this "cultural exchange" was not enough, N popped in a CD of Punjabi songs! Now I usually don't listen to Punjabi songs but I would have enjoyed it anyway had there been not faces with confusion and despair. But being the humble polite humans these Americans (I refer to US and Canadian citizens as one with the word American) are, they eat the food we provided and listening to blaring Bali Sagoo and his peers. The next time they invited me to bring-a-dish party (or pot-luck, what ever you call it), the invitation was laced with hints to bring something non-Indian. When I turned up with mashed-potato pie the relief on their faces was evident. The dish also qualified me for another invitation to a party. I was more than welcomed the next time as I brought pasta shells with two versions of tomato sauce to go with it... spicy India for the dare devils and sweet American for everyone. And since the base was common to both the versions one could mix them to get any taste in between the spectrum. So the moral of the story is... if you want to give them a taste of India, give it in digestible small courses. Unrealted You know it's a cruel world, but take heart in fact that you are not the only one at the receiving end. I know it is sadistic to take solace in fact that other people are also suffering... but then it is a cruel world. In an insane world, an insane person is sane. In a cruel world, a cruel person is normal. Update Sonos Digital Music System A first of it's kind... Sonos is a music system which transmits music from one single computer to multiple (up to 32) jukeboxes, wireless and all. The jukeboxes are controlled by one wireless controller. So, you can have different music playing or same music in all rooms, with different volume setting, etc. All controlled from one single wireless remote which you can carry with you from room to room. Check it out... it's a revolution! If you are the person who is working in a team on a term paper or an open source program and need to merge every now and then... then you need Winmerge. It can compare and merge two files. Many formats are supported. In case you are wondering how much it will cost? It is free.. go open source! Herbie - Fully loaded is one movie you can watch with your 7-year old cousin. He/she will enjoy the comic car-gone-crazy thing while you can cherish Lindsay Lohan's mini-skirts. I know you are expecting that Lindsay's thigh bone will show... after all she lost so much weight during summers this year that she looked like under-fed malnutrition-stricken kid from Indonesia. But she has recovered(?) and is back to cute chubby-bubbly herself. As for the movie.. it is a time pass thing. Nothing fancy about it. Just another kid-teen movie. (Yup, beside software and nerd news I also follow news on celebs.) Google restarted its Print project. They are caching books again. Also they are now affiliated with many printing houses, so expect some nice experts from upcoming books. Though multitude of complications are yet to be resolved, I am glad that it has been rebooted. *News of the day* You better be politically correct! Otherwise IIPM and Democrats will get you. Online Freedom of Speech Act was defeated in House of Representatives. The bill proposed an amendment to Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exclude communications over the Internet from the definition of public communication. The bill required a supermajority, but could only muster a vote tally of 225 to 182. C|NET blames Democrats for not aiding bloggers. Seems like everyone from IIPM to IIT KGP to Democrats to schools in Spartan are out to kill Web 2.0 But as I always say, "A good project never dies." I never had a soft corner for Fujitsu. I always thought it was a sub-standard brand and many people who have actually owned a Fujitsu laptop/PC agreed with me. But many more joined the "I don't have faith in Fujitsu club" after Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) went down for 4 hours yesterday (03rd Nov). There have been incidents of LIFFE and New York Stock exchange malfunctioning for a few minutes (which was a heavy loss), but 4 HOURS!! That will amount to billions of dollars! The software to run TSE is supplied and supported by none other than Fijitsu and was upgraded recently. So, now the world knows how reliable Fijitsu upgrades are. (More info here) For first time Electronic Arts (better known as EA, the computer game making company) has acquired a license outside the genre of Sports. They have finalized a deal which grants them exclusive rights to make games on famous TV series, "The Simpsons". So get ready to see Homer Simpson on your computer screen under your control. Oracle CFO, Greg Maffei is leaving the company. What's with CFO post at Oracle? It is more or less like Hogwart's Defence Against Dark Arts teacher's post... no body can stay on it long. Maffei lasted 4 months. His predecessor, Harry You, served a small term of 9 months. Let's see how long Safra Catz lasts.

Survival of the noblest

2005-11-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

In past two days I have realized two things... a) Best part of being in IIT is not the education you get or labs in which you work. It is the people you get to meet and befriend. b) I am incapable of having normal human conversations. I will leave the first point for another post at some other time and dwell upon the second one. When I refer to normal human conversations, I mean talking like "hi, what's up?" and then getting into discussions about distant cousin's friend going to Florida for MS and settling there. Invariably - and when I say invariable I mean irrespective of gender, age, religion of my company - my talks with anyone go into a debate mode after casual talks of well-being. For instance, I went to a friend's place for Diwali, where I met another friend and after a while we found ourselves debating on topic of no relevance to the festival at hand. Just in case you are interested, we were debating if not imposing a legal consequence and punishment for rape would have resulted in a society with lesser rape cases or otherwise. Today, after watching a movie with a friend and talking about this and that we went into a discussion if search of soul mate is justified. After clarification as to what is meant by soul mate (which included a Google search; do look up in Wikipedia, they have an interesting entry on this one) and how it is different from lady-love of life, I was able to convince him on my view point (I hate it when people are debating with wrong meaning/interpretation of keywords). But the status quo of not debating about anything didn't last long and we plunged into another debate about "Should one glorify/lie in curriculum vitae." (Please note the difference between CV and a resume.) The discussion lasted a couple of hours (ahem! talk about free time we have at hand) and was ended without conclusion as it was 3 in the morning and we decided to hit the sack instead of discussing moralities and probabilities of making through an interview. I don't know if it's a good quality or a bad one... but I can engage people into challenging debates. Get them to talk to me... open their ideas to me. And then put my views on the topic. I do not play the role of devil's advocate, but my views are some how counter or misaligned with the other person... and I can't stand it. So I end up having a very long discussion on the topic. May be it is because I have opinion on everything from NSE to LIFEE, from morality of individuals to morality of society, love to life, philosophy to phonies, technology to technicalities... basically on various topics. May be I should stop reading so much news and articles. Give it a little rest (and rest to my meta crawlers and RSS feeds). But then I won't survive. This blog won't survive. I blog because it opens another avenue for me to put my ideas in front of people. Get to know their ideas. Have interesting point (like Jetru's on last post). I do not want to judge this quality of mine, for judgments can be fatal. I want to live an intellectual life, refining my ideas by getting to know other's. By discussing them and hammering out flaws in them. So that only the best and the noblest of my ideas survive. Update The Microsoft Mojo Microsoft unveiled their new product (soon to be launched) called Mojo. It is a real time document editor. Using this software people can share documents as wiki, but instead of having a public access on public domain, the documents (normal MS Office documents) will be shared among few people (people that are invited/allowed to change) and will be on personal computers. Connection or invitations can be sent over messenger, emails or telephone calls! Interesting...eh? (More info here) Came across this site. It is a wonderful site for both, people who get irrelevant search results from Google (and curse it for no apparent reason)... know what you are doing wrong and better still get to know how to do the right search. Also, experts can benefit from it as well. Take a look... worth a quick glance. Suse 10 from Novell totally rocks! I just downloaded 5 CDs (3GB+ download...woah!), burned them and installed it. It has a GUI very similar to Windows, easy to set-up, stable and biggest thing... it is free! Talking of good things, American Pie - Band Camp seems to be the best American Pie movie ever. Finally something good comes out of Stifler family. Matt (Steve Stifler's younger brother) is played by Tad Hilgenbrink, who beats Jim Levenstein hollow as lead. Eugene Levy is hilarious as always and Arielle Kebbel (for the lack of words and to use the American Pie vocabulary) looks hot enough to get you interested in the movie. So if you go into the movie not expecting much and turning your brain switched off (it is American Pie after all) you will have a good time. Except for Dell, every company from Maruti to GM, IBM to ITC, Infosys to Reliance, M&M to Bajaj... has reported sales up by 30-90%! You remember my posting Steve Job's resume? Well here is another interesting one. This time it is Ward Cunningham, the brain behind WikiWikiWeb. Mocking the Web 2.0's elitest-hip-culture of camping. (Non-nerds don't bother... you won't get it and I ain't explaining.)

Indian tradition... my a**

2005-10-30T23:58:00.000-08:00

Recently I read on someone's blog that the person's (identity not disclosed as it may be an embarrassing being quoted as an example here, if you also happen to know the person it is my sincere request not to disclose the name in comments or anywhere else) sister was getting married. But before I could start forming a congratulatory note in my mind, the lines that followed gave me a setback. The bridegroom's side was not happy with the arrangements at engagement ceremony and the complaints were quickly translated into a bigger, costlier marriage function with longer dowry list. The blogger went on to write that bride's parent will yield on all the demands as the girl is past the marriage age, ladka accha hai [eligible bridegroom] and it will be a huge embarrassment in society to break engagement. Here are three counter points... i) who decides what age is right for marriage? Life as single is better than getting married to a greedy bastard. ii) eligible? WTF! The guy can't take a stand against his parents and ask them to do the right thing here... who says he is qualified? Does qualification come with hefty paychecks and university degrees? iii) god forbid, but if the girl is harassed for more dowry after marriage will the society come for help and condemn the in-laws. To hell with society man! Look at your girls welfare. This reminds me of an incident. After I got through JEE my dad gave a party to all his business associates. Many of whom are marwadies and though I have nothing personal against them, one of them made a comment (something of this effect), "wow! your son got through JEE, a product of IIT.. he will be worth a hefty dowry". Though I was not even half his age I said straight to his face, "You said it today and I am taking it, but never put such ideas in my or my families head. Product... worth... those are business terms for products not humans." And I curtly walked away. (If you haven't noticed yet from my previous posts, I can be very rude at times.) I f***ing don't care about a person who considers his son to be a product worth a few grams of gold. As for people who are in favor of giving dowry here is a brilliant idea... go to Afghanistan and sell your daughter there. You will get dowry instead of giving it and she will face a lesser harassment as slave compared to what she will get from greedy in-laws. Dramatic solution aside, the real world practical solution is not to save money for girl's dowry but to invest that money in her education. Make her independent... intelligent and proud to stand on her own. Teach her to take decision... right decisions, instead of caving in face of adversities. And most importantly show the middle finger to society. It is nothing more than a group of gossipmongers who will talk behind your back when something goes wrong. Expect no help and make your children strong to face it. Shopping Help In case you are still struck as to what you should gift that geeky cousin, here are two absolutely nice thing he would like to put on his table. No! It is not a twig in water in a glass bubble. It is a completely balanced self-sustaining ecological system. It is an algae with a few red sea shrimps (small ones). Just put this glass ball in natural indirect sunlight for few hours everyday and it will remain as it is live-and-kicking.... no feeding required. Yes, no input from your side is ever required. Though it is said to be balanced and live forever... the system comes with a limited 6 month guarantee and will last for the shrimp's lifetime. After that the algae will grow and fill the bubble. Nice concept though! (Click on the image to know more) Idea no.2 It is a thing/clock which displays time, message, etc. out in thin air! Yes it is not on a glass sheet or anything. How it works is a stick of LED swishes through the air 16 times/sec switching LEDs on-off making this image. It works on the principle of Persistence of Vision. Happy Deepawali to all.. enjoy! News of the day Donald Rumsfeld informed the President, "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in an accident" "OH DEAR GOD NO!!!" George W. Bush exclaims. "That's terrible!!" His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President, devastated, looks up and asks, "How many is a Brazillion??!"

Win 1000 German Beers, trip to...

2005-10-30T06:59:00.000-08:00

... Romania and a date with Count Dracula and his band of geeks. Yes, he is hanging out with geeks instead of super sexy female vampires these days, because Geeks are "in" :p In a very innovative Halloween competition, Romanian award-winning IT security and anti-virus provider, BitDefender has invited Linux enthusiasts to crash test BitDefender Mail Protection for Enterprise (Beta version) built for Linux platform. The winner will take home -along with glory- 1000 German Beers, a free trip to Romania to meet Count Dracula and Team of BitDefeder (wow!). More information on BitDefender's Crashandwin site. Registration is already on! (Contest being's 15th Nov) In -what is being called- a political move National Security Agency (NSA) released a few guidelines as to how NSA suggests people secure their desktops and notebooks. Many people have been spotted on different forums saying shifting to Linux is a better (as well as simpler and profound) option. Still take a look. Some are also skeptical that may be this will lead to an opening of backdoor to NSA in some near future (which in all probability is a joke). Update For the first time in history (best to my knowledge), conventional media attacked Bloggers. Every blogger who is regular at reading other blogs must have read criticism of conventional media at some time or other. Finally, conventional media strikes back. In his article in Forbes (14th Nov issue), Attack of Blogs, Daniel Lyons calls blogs as a formidable weapons hammering innocent corporates and media. Peter Blackshaw said...

Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality.

Mr. Blackshaw is chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a firm that scans through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients. So all the bloggers get your keypads and attack. Target: Intelliseek. Location: Cincinnati. What a dork! Well, I know there have been people who have misused this new-age media, but occurance of this misuse is far less than what happens in conventional media. The news on blogs is a lot more bias free and probablity of false news is lot less. (So, I personally believe.) Update deux Why does Google search rule? For multiple reasons like Page ranking, cache, etc. But to a common user it means nothing. For a common user "convenience" is the mantra. And Google is perfecting it. For example, now Google can do currency maths. If you have to buy an oil which cost Rs.71 per liter in India, what will be the cost of it in US dollars per US gallon? Before you pick your calculators and conversion tables open Google and type "72 Indian money per liter in US money per gallon" (yes, you don't even need to know what are formal money units like USD and INR). And voila! here is your answer. Google rules! If you are unaware of Mac's Expose feature (and it's Windows emulator TopDesk) you are living a deprived life. Seriously! It has been called the coolest feature of Mac OS X. But before you start typing your credit card number to purchase TopDesk (you can't wait once you see how cool it is), hold on! I will save you a couple of bucks and give you even cooler desktop effect, which is going to make people around you green (you can treat me sometime soon). Go to Deskloops. The effect is beyond words and you have to see the Quicktime movie on the site to know how it works. Is that awesome... wait, it is FREE!! Enjoy and make envious.

Listen to me...

2005-10-30T03:18:00.000-08:00

...for who I am. Not just because of where I study or come from. I hate it when people recognize me for being an IITian. Here is a scenario... "Oh yes, I remember you. You are studying in IITD, right?" I punch the cute looking girl in the face, now she will need a nose job and couple of fake teeth. (Yes, I can be mean and don't have issues with hitting girls.) I would like to be recognized as... (i) the nerd you met at CHIP technology expo (ii) a stupid guy who has idiotic opinion on anything and everything (iii) a guy who tried buying Merc SL550 with his credit card at Auto Expo (iv) a person who yawned 3245 times and slept for 27 mins during the last Hindi flick (v) a programmer who wrote 678 lines (did it on purpose, got a number like 6-7-8) of HTML+CSS+Javascript for this blog's template (v) anything.. but for being an IITian. I won't mind if you don't remember my name, or for that matter me. (I will remind you the next time we meet... I have sharp memory for faces and names.) I just don't have high regards for people who remember others by name-institute relation. I think it is too impersonal to have blog-friend's list like.. ABC(Wipro)... PQR(IITB)... XYZ(IIML).. etc. WTF!! Can't we remember simple things about a person after reading their blogs for months, something like ABC is a 24 year old female working in Wipro, B'lore who loves writing book reviews or PQR is a third year elec. engg. student at IITB who writes about robotronics. Do people read blogs because they are being written by employees of big firms or students of "prestigious" institutes? If so, this is not the place to visit. I haven't talked about technical details of life/projects in IITD... nor do I plan to. Everyone's life is different, even if they come from same place/institute and that is what makes it interesting. So please don't read this blog as blog of an IITian... read it as a Blog of some guy with uncommon name, Pradyot. PS I love writing personal posts and the only reason why I have been writing crapy movie reviews (movies are crapy.. not my reviews :P) and news addition is because nothing much is happening in my life. The only exciting thing happened in past 7 days was.... hmmmm.. I was 4 kms from the place where a bomb blast took place (at the times of blast). Mundane life... huh!

Love = Stupidity

2005-10-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

Love is not deaf or blind. It is plain stupid. Let me recount the events of the day and you shall know why I say so. There was a seminar on CAT strategies today for which me and A were going. Then A's gf (S) also decided to join us, so we (me and A) went to her place, parked my bike there and took a ricksaw to the seminar. The seminar was uneventful, but while returning my mom called to inform about Delhi's chain of bomb blasts. She said get back to the IIT campus (the safest place in Delhi according to her) asap... duh! Anyways, we reach South Ex. market from where S' place is at walking distance. So I say to A that let's drop her and get back. He tells me to go ahead, he will be coming later. After a taking a detour, so as to avoid SN market (where the blast took place), I reached hostel. Apprently the detour didn't help as their were many buses blocking the roads, some abandoned by drivers and some being checked by Delhi Police. So after about half an hour I finally arrive in cocoon of IIT. Manyank tells me that all the blasts took place in heavily crowded market places. Then he sees A is missing and inquires. Then goes ahead and calls him, only to get information that he is sitting in Barista, south Ex. with S. Mayank yells in the phone with concern about returning.... blah blah blah. After so much of fatal events.... the happy couple is sipping coffee in most likely place to be hit next! And thus I say, "Love is plain stupid." Update All this overhaul was out of concern for the friends. I have nothing against either of them or love or Barista.

Some movie reviews

2005-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

Article Rating: Suitable for children over 13 years as strong words like "shit" have been used, but considering JKR's usage of "s" word the age limit is set at 8 in UK. No spoilers included. Of late, I have watched so many movies and I would like to share my two cents on each of them (quite a lot of money!). This is kind of flavor change for people who are bored with Tech News in past few days. Before we start off, a small -in fact a big news- balance sheets (wow! I never thought I would get so deep into economics) for first quarter are in and the result is, "India Inc. rules!" Every single company I read about... Maruti, IDFC, Aptech, BoM, i-Flex, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft (India) have registered profits up by 40-120%. A round of applause. This means more jobs in the market... yay! Anyways, now on with the movies. First movie I saw this week was Ramji - London wale. Well the title sounds little shitty... the movie on the other hand is totally shitty. After a complex impossible turn of events a guy and a girl live happily ever after! The most ridiculous part is one where Ram (Madhavan) wins a cooking competitions and the company recovers his lost passport and work permit within 30 mins just so that they could gift him 50 grand! WTF, the loser couldn't protect his documents and couldn't recover them in many days... and a company did it for him just so that they could appoint him as cook. If that is possible then I can fly. Blah! Second movie was No Entry (I don't know why I saw this one and the previous one). No entry is a story (God forgive me for calling it a story) of three guys and 4 girls. One guy (Salman) goes around topless. Another guy (Anil Kapoor) acts confused as always. And the last guy is best left unmentioned. As for the 4 damsels.... they just go around making feeble attempts of acting in cloths that are not big enough to cover a poodle. Hanuman is a delight when compared to the previous movies. Though not exactly Pixar-level (which is a benchmark I swear-by these days), considering it is an indigenous project it deserves a word of praise. Some scenes are pixilated (I wonder why resolution dropped in some scenes -I watched it in multiplex, so no piracy issues) but rest of the movie is fine. Music, which is a part ignored most in animation movies (made in India), is quite well done. In fact it makes an impact. The story is well known to the Indian public, already, because grandmas have told them million times by now. I went to see The Legend of Zorro mainly because I liked the prequel. A lot of Bollywoodizing of the movie has been done this time. The first half is a drag, but a conspiracy theory is revealed after intermission and lot of action follows. You will enjoy the movie a lot more than I did if you go with people who a) know a little bit of American history and won't be clueless as to what is happening in first half. b) know a little bit of Batman and thus draw more informed analogies between Batman and Zorro, instead of comparing Zorro to Ajuba (Amitabh's old film) just because of the mask. c) have a little knowledge of Spanish and won't snigger when the kid calls Antonio "papi" d) can differentiate pronunciation of "Alejandro" and "honey haath do" [honey, give me your hand] e) have heard of Pinkertons before hand, so they won't miss it (it is mentioned only twice) and thus give you dumb look asking who was Pinkerton. Forecast The next coming movies are... Shaadi No.1 in which the skank count is at a new high of 6 and though I have seen Bond movies and Basic Instinct with my dad for company, I am not sure if I would be able to sit through this one. After this one, the only thing left to be shown on Indian screen would be a hardcore sex scene because this movie cover everything a step below it... wet swimsuits, blow-away skirts, not-low-but-no-neck blouses, etc. If I escape my male friends, some female friend of mine is definitely going to drag me into watching Kyun ki... and I will have to endure 3 hour long murder of One flew over the cuckoo's nest (so I have heard). Hopefully, Garam Masala will be remotely funny. Paresh Rawal is promising as always and when coupled with Akshay Kumar I expect them to crack me up laughing. The movie has a fare share of skin show, judgment is based on three 't's... title, trailer and trend. Here is a list of 10 movies I am looking forward to in near future (reason in bracket)... 1) Goal (poster and tag line is very attractive) 2) In her shoes (comedy, Cameron Diaz is being portrayed as sexy, irresponsible party girl) 3) V for Vendetta (based on a dark graphic novel, set in an alternate future where Germany won WWII and UK becomes a fascist state... wow!) 4) Must love dogs (perfect for a date - romantic comedy, John Cusack of Serendipity and Diane Lane- a cutie pie) 5) Memoirs of a Geisha (heard a lot about it) 6) Underworld Evolution (partly because of Kate and partly because I am a vampire) 7) Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead man's chest (the prequel was very very very nice, Jonny Depp) 8) Basic Instinct II (do I need to say ANYthing) 9) The Weather Man (high expectations from Nicolas Cage and Gore Verbinski - of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'The Ring' fame) 10) Saw II (the prequel was quite intriguing, complicated story keeps you through blood and gore)

More news with love

2005-10-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

What IS love? Well, such a commonplace question... and yet I never pondered over it. Let me correct it. Well, it's a commonplace question... thus I never pondered over it. But Viveka asked me here, "u havent been in luv have u buddy?" Here is a question in reply to a question, "What is love?" Epics and books have been written about it and yet no one has defined it. Is it waiting for a person in a park for hours? Is it calling him/her in wee hours of night and talking till unearthly hours in morning? Is it sitting with a person in a cafe, sipping cold coffee... eyes/lips locked... for hours. At the end of any of those meets you are left confused... did you act appropriate? Was he/she happy? Was he/she disappointed? Dejected? Exhilarated? Then you reply to yourself with a philosophical utter-shit answer like thousand words lie in silence or love doesn't need speech or something equally nonsense. If that is love... not being the kiss-and-tell type of guy, all I would say is, "been there done that". And yet I say what I said in first place... I think love is like viagara or IIT or God or Taj Mahal... a little over hyped. (Sorry Viveka if I sound a little too harsh... but may be, and god forbid you do, you will see many facets of it in future and then you will know what I am talking about) On the other hand if love is your mom calling and guessing that you are happy/dejected/busy/lazy/sleepy/angry/over-worked...etc. just from a "Hello" then I say love is miraculous. (And don't tell me that this doesn't happen. Mom can guess your mood/hunger/headache from a hundred miles away) But just like the commonplace question, this kind of affection is so commonplace and has been experienced on so day-to-day basis that it is not talked about at all when the question is raised as to what is love. Take all the attempts to "explain/portray" love of lovers on one hand and all the attempts to "describe" (forget explain, which I don't think was ever even attempted whole-heartedly) any other kind of love/attachment between kids-parents, siblings, friends, cousins on the other hand and you will have a clear winner by phenomenal margin. And thus when I say the statement, love is over hyped, I am referring to that coy relationship between two people. Tech News Nicholas Carr came out with an article titled The Amorality of Web 2.0 in which he calls Wikipedia a source that cannot be trusted (and I have to agree to a great extent). After a longish explanation of how Web 2.0 is flawed, most techies know it already, he goes on to say how it will impact economics of culture and Web 2.0 is the culture of cultures, as it hold no bar. He sees Blogosphere as a competitor of conventional media. (I said that long before he did, during Bloggers v/s IIPM episode... hehe!) Billy boy aka Bill Gates strengthening his stand, which he took in Israel, in a BBC interview that MSN will have a better search within an year or so. He also openly announced rivalry with Apple, saying Microsoft and their device partner would like a bigger share of [Apple] pie. To help Mr. Gates, Douglas Merrill, senior director, information technology at Google gave an entertaining and informative talk at Vortex 2005 on how Google managed its information flow, came up with creative ideas, etc. In short, he claims the company to be crystal transparent on the inside... something which it is not on the outside. Statistics Now to answer Handa's question in his comment on last post... here are last 30 keywords searched that led to my blog... 6 blogger Pradyot (Google) 4 http://adjournment.blogspot.com (Google) 3 matthew kidman (Google) 2 pradyot ghate (Google) 1 bad and good in Mc Donald (MSN) 1 scintillating used in sentence (Google) 1 canada planman consulting (Google) 1 scrubs "always works" JD (Google) 1 ".of god+orkut" (Google) 1 "brody jenner" dob (Google)......... huh?? 1 what does scintillating mean? (Google) 1 ipod nano was invented (Google) 1 iipm blog (Google) 1 what is statutory warning (Google) 1 hindi mai shayari/ (Google) 1 +pun +unintended (Google) 1 tralier movie (Google) 1 IIPM PLANMAN CONSULTANTS ARTICLE JAM (Google) 1 batman begins ras al gul gang (Google) Sorry Hanada, no gay pictures or prostitute searches end up on my blog. Clean..eh? PS I have 3 more posts ready to be published... all set to go. But I am just waiting for people to digest these long posts. A high dosage of Pradyot-blog can have fatal consequences.

Sabotage-strategies v/s Performance

2005-10-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been writing a lot of impromptu post. Straight into the browser (earlier first I used to write in MS Word, save them... think over them before posting, etc.), which has resulted in many crappy posts ~~like the one before this~~ (it has been removed, it was too stupid). Anyway, I just heard (or rather 'read', if you want a more accurate account of events) that another Intel processor crashed and burned. Now, I have been a great advocator of AMD since my first year in IIT. I have used my influence and act of acting knowledgeable in field of computers to increase the sale of AMD by 6 processors in last 3 years (yes they own my big time). I even got my new laptop with an AMD Sempron, even though the sales guy would not recommend it whole-heartedly. The sales girl, who was attending me before this sales person, didn't know the difference between AMD and Intel, except that one had green and the other had blue label. (This is not my method of poking fun at female community, who is not so versed with technology in most individual cases, but a method to show how much people are aware of processors in general) But I have been a great admirer of AMD. My desktop and the ones I influenced to buy AMD have been working perfectly fine, through the summers as well. In Delhi summer is hot and their have been events when Intel processors had to be given a rest. But AMD... no sir, it worked through the years (and hopefully will for years to come). After watching 3 Intel processors draw their last breath while all the 8 AMDs are still working, it just reinforces my belief that AMD getting hot and having a shorter life span is a market rumor spread by Intel to sell their high priced low performance processors. Yes, AMD gives more GHz and cache memory on per buck basis. Intel v/s AMD is a perfect case of sabotage-strategies v/s performance. Only few intelligent people (like me :P) make the right decision based on benchmarks and facts instead of advertisements and word of mouth. Update For anyone who is planning to start a new blog visit ModBlog. Though Blogger is very good and highly customizable (coming from Google, we expect nothing less), it is still stuck with main post and one column format, by default. Also it has no blog services like BlogRolling, Chatterbox, etc. of its own. You have to get/register for them from other sites and including them on the template page can be quite a hectic job. On the other hand ModBlog has all these goodies built into their 3-column template already. So if you are not a scripting enthusiast, who can make a template from scratch and use template page with dextrity (which if done, can make very nice templates) in Blogger, you can switch-over/start at ModBlog. Does he look like he is afraid? Well Mr. Gates said he is not afraid of Google, in an interview in Israel. (Yes after tapping into Indian talent pool, Billy boy is now headed to Jew talent-pool.) In return I asked Google, "Is Google afraid of Microsoft" - and no joking here, I actually went to Google('s page) and wrote this question and pressed 'I am feeling lucky' - the answer is this... It gave me an article detailing why microsoft is afraid of Google. (Read article here) I guess Google didn't understand my question very well. Talk about irrelevance.

Books on my "To Buy" list

2005-10-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

(The book titles read, "How to Cheat university exams", "How to Murder your professor and get away with it" and "How to impersonate as an Engineer") And just in case something goes wrong in one of these three books, here is the ultimate master peice... And these two are for gifting purpose... if some one is complaining about a birthday gift being due... Ok! Before you call 911 or 100, as the case may be, please read next line. None of these books are real (so don't go searching on Amazon for "How to murder your profs" or "cheating through univ"... I know some of you might be tempted). Since people found info on my previous post quite interesting, I decided to share some more tid-bits from the data my crawlers had found. Well, this is a thing called Flapart, fake book covers to wrap around your hard bound books to freak people out. Nice practical joke! And the back covers look real too with text and all. On a more serious note After IIPM its Pope John XIII Regional High School's (in Sparta) time. Another institute trying to curb free speech. The principal of this school has asked every single student to pull the shutter on his/her blog or face suspension. The noble act is being supported with reasons like, "...blogs and personal space on net make students vulnerable to net predators." My response: Shut up! This is a bloody high school not a pre-school nursery. When will you let the students take their own decisions? Complete article here And some tech stuff (all geeks say "ho!"): ROKR, product of Motorola and Apple, which was to provide MP3 songs anywhere through mobile phones is in jeopadry. Why? Read here Now you can let your jaw drop and wonder how I get all these tid-bits. Heheh...

A Line

2005-10-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

... from Christopher Paolini's latest "The Eldest" "...best of luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don't eat earwax, and look on the bright side of life!" Fitting in all situations, eh?

Phony Words

2005-10-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Grab your New Oxford American Dictionary(NOAD). Finger through the pages to one where words start with "e". Now find the word esquivalience. Memorize this word and never use it. It's a phony word... totally made-up. It never existed before this edition and shall never be incorporated in any other editions. (I know most of you won't take my word for it, so visit this article from The New Yorker) It is analogous to radioactive tag used in medicines. In an attempt to track down copiers of NOAD the editors decided to incorporate a new phony word into the list. So when some one copies the dictionary back-to-back without checking for authenticity and doing his homework, he can be caught and dragged into court. After than it is a simple case to prove that he violated copyrights. Well don't be shocked, it is quite a traditional practice and you can find multiple examples of such incidents in The New Yorker's article. If encyclopedias and dictionaries are making phony entries how do we verify facts!! Update: In case someone is going to buy a new CPU here is a very extensive comparison.

Ever-expanding Indian Dream

2005-10-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

After attending second seminar by BCG, I was reminded of Jimmy Carter's last lines of Inaugural Speech, ".... ever-expanding American dream." It was a post war peaceful time of booming economy in America. Every young couple dreamed of having a sub-urban house with a small front lawn and an even smaller backyard. They dreamed of having a family car in which they would take late night trips for ice cream. The kind of family life "Wonder Years" portray. But how is BCG, India connected to all this? The mere fact that BCG, India is coming to IITD campus multiple number of times... giving pointers, having interactive sessions and portraying a sugar-coated image of the company goes out to show their increasing interest in recruitment. A sign of expansion if you see closely. Also the fact that MNCs like Shell are coming, for the first time, show that they are establishing nests in India as well. The shear increase in number of companies interested in recruitment is an indication of booming economy. So where America stood in '77, India stands in '05. Today, we have similar aspirations... similar dreams, may be a Indian-version of it but still quite similar. India has reached a stage where it can handle sanctions from US (which were imposed after Pokhran Nuclear Test); feed its population and be left with enough food grain that it needs to be sea dumped. So we are no more an under-developed nation of starved, uneducated cattle. We have developed into a resourceful nation which is blinking on global radar... catching attention of multi-nationals. Today we do not dream of having a mouthful but of comfortable lifestyle; we have adopted the American dream of higher aspiration. Said that, it is important to realize that a dream like this won't materialize if we go into a mode of hibernation and/or self-praise, as has been the case with automobile industry in last fiscal year. Maruti, M&M, Tata Motors (except for Indica division) and other Indian companies have lost market share to GM, Chrysler and other foreign companies. The alarms have not gone off and lay off(s) haven't started yet because of sustained profits, due to market expansion. But if we lose competitive edge as Indian automobile industry has, we will never realize the dream I just talked about. So what we need to do is retain, in fact sharpen, our competitive edge; which will be the case only if we empower our education system, because a large skilled task force will only insure price competitive availability. After primary education we should gear into vocational courses rather than into higher education and degree courses. A few people would always be required to monitor, manage and innovate... those will be the people who would go for higher education in IITs, NITs and IIMs (and institutes of similar stature in other fields). There is no point in mass production of so-called engineers from local sub-standard engineering colleges, which is the case in current scenario. Because at the end of 4-years the jobs offered are anyways in BPO sector or in sales or in coding. So instead of 4 years of engineering short-term vocational courses in programming, retailing, sales, etc. could be a lot more helpful. It is a very crucial point in history of India. If this opportunity is handled well, India can be the next driving economic force along with big countries like China, US and EU. Other wise if we, the people, and the government do not make suitable policies we could be once again deemed as "developing nation" for next 60 years, till the next global economic boom arrives. (I would like to apologize to all the readers who are not from IITs/IIMs/NITs and instead study in local/regional colleges for calling them substandard. But that is the ground reality, these colleges are not lacking in funds, faculty and facilities. They are not qualified enough and the students passing out from them are doing jobs for which lesser amount of training is required and thus are essentially wasting precious years of their life. Also when I say "institutes of similar stature in different fields", I am referring to top institutes in fields other than management and engineering like ISM in Mining and Geology, IIITs in IT sector, etc.)

Did I started it?

2005-10-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

As I was getting out of the test center of mock cat, overheard this conversation... Guy1: Man, TCS must be the biggest computer technology firm in the world. May be second only to Microsoft. Guy2: (Appeased at the chance of correcting his friend) No way. Haven't you heard of Google? TCS must be close 3rd after Google. Guy1: I don't think so... it is bigger *doing the finger quote action* than Google. I felt like crying out loud... Ever heard of Apple, moron? And use the quote action at right place damn it. But after a mock CAT, I had done enough mocking for the day. So I walked away. After 6 template changes... 10 months... and 150 posts... Am I still the same sarky little kid who started this blog? Afore mentioned event begs to differ.

I am getting wise

2005-10-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

There is something about Kate Beckinsale. I mean beside the fact that she is beautiful... there is something more to her. There are many actresses out there but she is just too cute. It is not her English origin. She looked cute in Serendipity and then she was tough in Van Helsing and Underworld. And trailers of Underworld:Evolution looks promising. May be there is something common between me and vampires, that is why we like Kate. :) Well my two teeth are a little long and sharp, not very prominently but out of ordinary. One reason why I don't give broad grins. Finally I am getting my wisdom teeth. Contrary to common belief, everyone do no have 32 teeth. 98% people live with 28 teeth!! In fact it is so rare that in Marathi (my mother tongue) we have a saying which says something to this effect, 'if a person says something and the person has 32 teeth, the thing comes true.' Given the fact that my mom is among the minority, I was hoping to get my 4 wisdom teeth, but genetics is probability. Finally this morning I saw that there are new white peaks coming out of rear ends of my gum. Yay! *happy*

Pre-paid card

2005-10-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

This is the most expensive pre paid card (on dollar per hour basis). It costs USD 112,939.73 (+taxes) for 25 hours of private flight time. This is an awesome pre-paid card... I mean it is joy of getting Airtel pre-paid card during first year (yay! I can call people now) 112939 times!

My birthday is just 2 months away!!

2005-10-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

Damn man! This is what I call fashionable technology. In case you are gifting me this for birthday I would like it in Mercury/Grey color. (It is recommended accessory of my mobile phone Motorola V3 Razr)

A night that was

2005-10-22T04:43:00.002-07:00

Once Conufsed said that blogs are place where people are most honest (or something to same effect). And I totally agreed then. So do I do today. So here is an honest story of last night, I not sure if I should be proud or ashamed or indifferent to the events that took place, but nevertheless I will recount them. The people involved in the events will be referred to with single alphabets and though the central person doesn't care what the world thinks about him, I won't take the liberty to make his name public. Also, the native language of being Hindi I will be using it at times, as the essence of the conversation may be lost in translation. So here goes... As planned we met at one of the rooms in a designated hostel. Beer, vodka, rum, crisps and namkeen was in place, as promised. What took place for next couple of hours is pretty obvious and insignificant. As new members joined in, new ideas were put forward as to what should be done with rest of the night. One of them being, 'lets smoke grass'. Couple of experienced players of the game (me not being one of them) were unsure if it would be available at that hour. W and me decided to try to give it a shot anyway... me being designated driver and W being the experienced player. And with this began my first journey on which I broke multiple laws. One thing I am glad about my body is that it never loses its senses (even a ring of mobile or knock on door is sufficient to wake me up after heavy nights), so I was to drive. And sensibly I drove. After taking couple of lefts and couple of rights we reached a place which looked quite similar to Toronto's Entertainment District, only a little upscale (yes, it was upscale even compared to ED). The damsels were one of the best dressed and best looking I have seen and none of the cars were from small-family-car segment. But this was not our destination, though I would have loved to stay there a little longer. On with the mission. Some 20 meters away there was a small by-lane, which we took. Both sides, of what must have been road in last century, were dug. It was like trenches dug as war preparation and the mud was piled up on the road. After trick-driving over the parabola for another 100 meters we reached a place which looked more like part of East Delhi slum area rather than South Delhi's posh region. W said, "Well you can park your bike here and stay or come with me and see the story you may never see again." So I decided to go along. After crisscrossing through slums we reached a hut with tarpaulin cover. W knocked. The guy inside grumbled. W: Baba... thoda sa maal chahiye tha baba Old guy(O): Abhi nahi milega. W: Baba bahut jaroori hai. Thoda sa dedo O: Arrey kaha na abhi nahi hai... baad mein ayega W: Kuch to hoga baba... thoda sa bhi chalega From the voice of the old guy I would place him anywhere inbetween 50-60. And from voice of W I would place him anywhere between needy to good-actor. The old guy mumbled something that I did not catch. W promptly took out his wallet and pulled 50 bucks. "Do you have change?" What!! Was this guy kidding me? I thought these kind of things were damn expensive and here he was asking me if I have change of 50!! Well I was out of cash for the night and thus he gave the note to the old guy. O: Chutta bhi nahi hai... raat ko aate ho.. W: Maafi kar do baba... agli baar dhyan rakhunga The old guy hands him 30 bucks and a polythene packet, W pockets them both. On return journey he is telling me about philosophy behind the grass... why Indian sadhu smoke it... etc. But I am more engrossed in noting the stark contrast that was separated by less than half a kilometer. Here was this old guy selling stuff to make couple of extra bucks while a few meters away young men were pumping petrol in their luxury cars. Here was the guy in taters (I didn't see him but most probably he was) while a block away there were girls in (lesser) cloths with expensive price tags. The contrast was so high that I lack words to describe it. It sure was a story I may never get to see again in my life. May be I don't want to see... I am too scared to see. And may be this is the reason why I won't smoke weed ever again. Because to enjoy it you have to let go and I am holding too tightly... on my dreams, on my ambitions, on consequences. I am too afraid to let go.

Advent of IE7

2005-10-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

I changed my template... well I keep doing it, but this time it was different. I wanted my page to be compliant with w3c standards. And when I heard from Geek news (yes, I read Geek.com) that IE 7 will kill any CSS hacks (details here), which the original templates of Blogger use extensively I decided it was time to do the revamp. All my previous templates were cosmetic changes, built on core blogger template with a few graphical changes here and there. Also a couple of javascripts (which turned out to be nightmare to port into new template). So I got a new w3c compliant template, customized it to my taste and need... added my javascripts... said a huge "uggghhhhh..." re-did my javascripts and viola! there you have it. Nice new template. Cross platform, cross browser and any resolution!! Chic, ain't it?

The long post I promised...

2005-10-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

If you missed my usual blabbering (I need to look up a thesauruses, I am using this word way too much) please do not blame me. Kindly direct your entire wrath to a certain professor in physics department at IITD who has been making me go through hoops. Anyways besides acting like his pet doing stupid physics stuff, which is one of the things you have to do to get good grades in BTP, I read a lot and watched a couple of movies in last few days. The last time my juniors saw me watching a Hindi movie in common room they were so shocked that a mass CPR had to be initiated. So here is a fair warning in advance: some reviews are on Hindi movies. And these kind of moments i.e. when I do reviews are rare, but reviews of Hindi movies... rarer! So treasure these moments. First the reading part... beside my usual high volume of finance and technology magazines, I read Big Fish. Accounting the fact that I read books after they are recommended by, but list not limited to, hotshot IIT stud bloggers there is not much point my writing a review. They have already done a good job at it and most probably you must have read the book by now (if not, all I have to say is "please do"). So instead let me give you my not-so-precious viewpoint on economy. Today India stands at a very crucial point. For eons we have been trading with EU, bagging a meager 2% of their trade... today they want to increase it. Snatch share away from China (in fact this has already happened in Textile trade) and give it to us. All we need to do is show a little tact of negotiation. If they give in to our demands, we definitely will have to relax and standardize some of our policies in turn, but that is a small price to pay for increasing Euro reserves. Another thing I came across is the way China has been building its infrastructure and not gloating about it. We say a thousand praises about Golden Quadrangular (which has been interrupted only to be restarted multiple number of times), which is about 5000kms of four-lane highways... well listen to this. In last 2 years China has built 30000kms (yes the number of zeros is right) of six lane highways and plan to build another 12000kms in next one year. Even if the area of countries are factored in, we are lagging by laps. So here is an unwanted but valuable advice to politicians countrywide... more work less talk and even lesser political hindrance in infra-projects. And while you are at it, make airports privatized, at least we won't have to wait for an hour for luggage after a 45-minute flight from Mumbai to Delhi. Thank you. Besides infrastructure, we are also lagging in retail sector. Chain, after having removed FDI cap in 2004, has presence of 7 major global retailers... so the score stands, China 7 India 0. And we call China communists!! Also, if any of you have spare money to invest... Standard Chartered Bank is a good option in terms of shares. BSE dipped to a new low of below 7900 (record low in last 6 weeks), but in my personal opinion it will stabilize by the end of this month and a bull run is due in November. (There you go, all who wanted my opinion on the matter.) Now the movies... English first. Adaptation is a nice movie, to speak in liberal terms. More precisely what is nice about the movie is well done acting of Mr. Cage. Anyone who has done even a small role in college drama knows how hard it is to get into a role... to get the feel of the character. Well consider doing two very different characters at same time... Nicholas pulls it off very well. In fact the direction is where I was little disappointed as the story was not very "natural" to comprehend. Having great expectations from Nicholas Cage - after watching Face-off and City of Angles (ya! I am easily pleased) - ruined because of senseless action-thrillers like National Treasure, which did not do justice with his talent, this movie comes as a pleasant surprise. Kasak plays it too hard to tug your heart at first. Then the writer/director found himself incapable of doing so and decided to let the movie progress in a total random fashion. After about 30 minutes into the movie everything goes random... the story loses the theme it started with, from what I perceived theme was about serving old people and social stuff, and goes into a full-blown skin show. With stupid moans by incoming actresses (which are disgusting instead of erotic) and lack of acting the movie falls on you as dead weight. Chocolate is a movie which I can't start to describe. I will have to invent some new abuses to refer to directors and script writers for they murdered, yes 'killed' is a sober word in this case, one of my favorite movie The Usual Suspect so brutally that it makes Rob Zombie look like a kid. Which brings me to the review of Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. With all the blood and gore you may forget that you are watching a movie. It seems more like a documentary made by FBI to investigate a pack of serial killers and scare new recruits. It is a series of mindless killings... and over usage of four letter words don't help. But then after House of 1000 corpse what else was I expecting! The movie at it best can be skipped by majority of populace. A complete no-no if you have girl-friend/children/heart-patient/pregnant wife/parents/anyone-with-IQ-of-80+ for company. It lacks direction, story, blah... basically it lacks everything except abusive language. Finally, Pyar mein twist... another Hindi film I saw *eyes rolling*. Rishi Kapoor is monotonous, Sameer -the new guy- is as bland in acting as... errr... well I don't have a comparison. Dimple "aunty" has forgotten acting or she never learned in first place? Soha does not put up now commonplace skin show and does not allow the director to objectify her *yawn* still it would have been better had she taken some pointers from her brother. Though stereotype, he at least know what youth of India likes. The story is so boring that you might want to rip off your arm just so that you have something to throw at screen. The only reason I didn't walk out or made boo calls was because of my company. And Soha phuuulease get a nose job... if you can't act at least look good. With this I close this mixed-bag-no-good post and return to my dull project. :-L Disclaimer: I am not the kind of guy who digs deep into movies to see the underlying threads of sensibility. I take them for their face value, if intriguing then I dig deeper. So don't grill me if your opinion differs on The Devil's Reject. All Rob Zombie fans... no offence meant.

I will make up for the lapse with a long post soon...

2005-10-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

For all those who refresh this page once a day (if you do more than once, you must be missing on assignments or something) here is a shayari you can aarz on me (sorry for bad urdu) next time we meet... Dil tootega to fariyaad karoge tum bhi, Hum na rahe to humein yaad karoge tum bhi. Aaj kehte ho hamare paas waqt nahi, Par ek din mere liye waqt barbaad karoge tum bhi ... (thanks to Anchal, copied from her blog)

3 mintue change of destiny

2005-10-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

For a person like me, who does not believe in coincidences, serendipities or accidents… who takes responsibilities for all his actions… it becomes very hard to make choices. For I will be the last person to turn my back on my choice and say it was fate or destiny. For me destiny is not a destination… it is a railway platform without markings. You reach it and stand… wait for the train to arrive. After the train has arrived you can either see an air-conditioned compartment in front of you or a second-class. This much is the role of luck. But then there is 3 minute window… in which you can rush and run… reach a A/C compartment and get in. Most people say my destiny is to sit in a second-class, I am not one of them. I would make full use of those three minutes to change (some may call it ‘upgrade’) my destiny. These thoughts have been the center of my week long vacation. I did not visit my parents (no big surprise, I am never home sick) nor did I go to my local guardians’ place. I was alone most of the time and I like myself for company. I almost made couple of decisions, decisions which will affect my rest of the life and was very much in right mind to execute them. Just then, my vacations ended, people started coming back. And a few people, who are misunderstood, but whose opinion I value started give their feedback. And I have a lot more thinking to do now… taking their opinions as factor. So here I am… back to square one… thinking again! Waiting for my train to come. Strategizing as to how I should use my 3 minutes.

iPod Nano, Microsoft and IIPM... what's common?

2005-10-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is a page for Ross and like minded iPod nano lovers who are going to blow their hard earned advertisement money on it. The "impossibly small" thing has a major fault. Well considering Microsoft invented iPod this isn't a surprise. More important is the lesson hidden in afore mentioned post for IIPM. How to tackle enraged web users... Apple pulled it well, lets see what you can do!!

No grace in loosing

2005-10-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

Losing gracefully!! My F****ng ass. What is the point of being gracefully when you are a bloody loser. What is the point of giving that big hero like smile when no body is watching. Is it really worth throwing away the game for a candle's sake? If your opponents are playing big, bad and dirty... is there a point in playing fair and square. Even mythology justifies telling half-truths, using scape-goats and sabotaging opponents (talking about Mahabharat... Lord Krishna played dubious devil at multiple events at multiple levels) At the end of the day what counts is who remained in the game and who went out... as a loser. There is no honor in loosing. No point in pride and self-esteem. These are consoling words used by losers to justify loss rather than admit what they are.... losers! PS. Nothing especial. No philosophy class... neither any management funda. Simple after thoughts of watching The Apprentice.

A movie tralier...

2005-10-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

Separate blog for the project... no more techie stuff here!!

2005-10-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Ok a lot of internet protocol, open source programming and nerdy stuff has been said in last couple of days and as much as I love IITians being labeled as nerds, I try to keep this blog free of that and understandable to a non-tech guy. Thus it has fair amount of economics stuff, my entangled life, politics, vegetable prices to share market and other similar stuff. So I plan to talk a little non-tech for now… (as I would like to read some comments for a change, instead of just visit counter soaring) But before some non-tech stuff… news of the week… Sean Michael Kerner has joined Google!! This is huge… this guy is brain behind Gaim (never mind if you don’t know what it is, it is a brilliant cross platform multi-protocol application). This could have serious implications and finally make Google number one in one more sector… more monopoly. Before you guys get your boxing gloves out to punch me for being skeptical, as always… please read this post (made around a month back, when share market was booming) where I said market will go down in mid-October… check last three news papers and today’s date!! Ha! Well in all this I forgot what was the non-tech thing I was going to talk about. You can read something non-tech I wrote on this blog a few hours back. Anyways you can visit this new blog where all the updates on the project will be coming. Also beside me you can get in touch with shah[DOT]paritosh@gmail[DOT]com

More development on Free News Channel

2005-10-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

First thing, I am very happy… in fact appalled (in a positive way) by response I have got from people. Many people have come forward to support this channel in multiple ways and many have shown interest in it by adding themselves to mailing list. All this has fueled our energies and we are working with a lot more enthusiasm in this project. In case you are wondering, after IIPM v/s Bloggers case, if I’m checking every word that I write on blog for it’s political correctness and thus refraining from blogging… I am not. On the contrary I have a lot to say about IIPM and related issues. But then you can find most of it scattered throughout the blogosphere. And though I condemn IIPM and their act against many fellow bloggers, I have deiced to put my energies behind making a channel, which ensures freedom of speech. As you may have read from the third comment from an anonymous poster, on my last post, he considers Wikinews is already doing it. Let me explain what I mean by Free Speech on the very outset and then I will come to why Wikinews, Slashdot, k5 and other sites are not channels of free speech. By “Free Speech” I say that the person has a right to say/write something in an open public forum. What he says/suggest may not be heard or rejected by the majority of populace but he has a write to broadcast, to use a term of channel. The news/views he wants to express should be unedited under all circumstances. The problem with open speech is every tom, dick (pun unintended) and harry (again, pun unintended) has an opinion. And every person thinks a new molehill in his courtyard is Eiffel Tower. So if a channel, say a collection of blogs, is given to public… it will be too much cluttered by information. And it will be heck of job to weed through all the information to reach what is relevant or important to majority of the world. But if a central authority is placed to weed... it mutilates freedom, in a sense that central authority may start censorship. To avoid this cluttering of information, in comments section of Slashdot, a collaborative filtering has been applied. A randomly selected sample of people are invited to rate the comments. This ensures that bad comments’ rating go down and good comments come to surface. In this method everyone has a right to freedom of speech, but everyone’s speech is being rated and people have an option to listen to top rated speech. Though, if a gibberish speaking person is luck and people are free enough they will listen to his molehill story too. The problem is Slashdot doesn’t have similar rating sequence for stories and they are edited/censored centrally. A few modifications have to be made to this rating system in the first place because given the parity in lengths of comments and complete article; it will become impossible to rate an article in similar model. Thus, we are working on working out norms so as not to burden our readers with a lot of editorship job and at the same time maintain the quality content of the channel.

Free of bias open media project

2005-10-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

After yesterday’s unfortunate turn of events (detail’s in this post) I said, “This might be the end of print media as we know it”. Well though I am not the first one to think/say this, I decided to think about it a little more. The thing is that news can spread through blogs… and at a very fast rate. Yesterday, hell broke loose on IIPM because a famous blogger, who has got 2 lakh plus visitors in last 3 years amounting to (approximately) 175 hits per day was forced to resign for no fault of his own. A similar kind of thing happened in case of Maddox v/s Orbitz. But what about bloggers who don’t have such high visibility, there might be news on their pages. News worth knowing… news that didn’t get printed in any media, because of lack of relevance or media bias. As rightly pointed out in comments section of Handa’s post, media might not show interest in JAM v/s IIPM case because IIPM is a big advertisement source. After all this happened, a couple of friends and me, got together (we are all free as mid-sem break is on) and were talking about the whole new media. The problem is of organizing it. Their might be news buried deep in there somewhere… how to get people to know where the information is… on which particular blog! The problem was very apparent in yesterday's case though Desipundit and Sambhar Mafia tried to organize everything and did a comendable job at that. So, we decided to investigate as to what media bias is… and here is a Wikipedia link. Media bias is a term used to describe a real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events will be reported and how they are covered. What could be done to eliminate such a bias… the solution is to make it free of one-person-journalism and ownership. Make a open source Mass Media Website… owned by no one, but reported upon by everyone. That way the people get to decide what is worthy news to be put up and shared. Also as multiple people will be reporting the news, the bias of reporting will be removed as news will give both points of view. On searching a little about free open media, we came across this project Maadiha!, which was doing a very similar job, but was suppressed by a media giant because it had owners who could be suppressed. That is why the media we are proposing here does not have a owner… so no one can be oppressed. There is no particular team of journalist who can be bought. There would be no advertisements on the site… so the site will not own a favor to anyone. The structure we (me and my friends) propose is something like this… The site will be categorized regionally and each region can have it’s own language as well as a common language, say English. When someone somewhere finds a new worth reporting... it coule be anything from small ralley to a mass riot... from a small crime to bank robbery... from a small strike in factory to a big hike in petrol price, he/she will logon to the site and put up an article. The article can be read, appended and commented upon by all. The option of appending the article will ensure that the second party in question has an opportunity to make its case and present news from its point of view. I know it won’t be this simple and there would be many problems, but these will sorted out as we go along. And if we are fortunate enough the open source nature of the project will attract more people. The source code of the site and news quality will improve as the number of contributors increase. But before we go into buying a domain name with lot of webspace and bandwidth, we would like to think it through. So for now we have set up a small site (on Geocities, which can support about 1 million hits per month) for purpose of getting ideas, feedback and volunteers. If we see that people are interested in this project, we will buy the required amount of webspace and bandwidth along with a domain name. I urge you to visit this site and spread the word about Project Freedom of Speech around by putting this tag (the one you see in upper left hand corner) on your website or any other means you deem fit, because success of every open source project lies in number of contributors. Here is how you can put this line… <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.geocities.com/pradyot_g/freedom.js"> </script> in between <HEAD> and </HEAD> tag of your webpage or blog template. Logical criticism, suggestions for improvement and volunteers for site designing are welcome.

Top five reasons…

2005-10-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

… why you SHOULD join IIPM instead of an IIM!!! There has been a huge hue and cry in blog circles in last couple of months over a so-called fraud institute IIPM. I, however, do not endorse this JAM article. In fact I think the institute has a lot to offer it’s students… and here are top 5 (there are more than ten, in case you are wondering) reasons why you should tear your CAT examination card and join IIPM… 1) Crisis Management: They have a real life project going on… on Crisis Management. The project is called “Saving Grace”. And there is no project like real life project. In this project you will be taught tactical use of lawsuits, threats, financial power to advertise, etc. 2) Student Union: Is another brilliant example of event-management organization. Even as a student you are responsible for staging events -or at least you are counted upon as responsible students to hold events while making threats- like holding bon-fire of laptops in front of reputed firms, even if they are not involved in any fathomable manner. 3) Be a MAN: They teach you to be man. A man who stands by his mistakes and not be logical in refuting any allegations made on you. Also never take crap from punks. There have been articles criticizing IITs, IIMs, Xavier’s, Stephen’s, DU, etc. and they all eat that crap. IIPM on the other hand teaches you to retaliate and not take shit-load articles. 4) Ambush tactics: They can teach you ambush tactics like making fake blogs and threatening you with a law suite instead of playing a fair and square game by justifying tall claims with evidence. 5) Dean’s post: After passing out you can become a dean at the institute. At least Arindham Chaudhary became one! Of course, you will have to be of his caliber… be a topper during your B.A., M.A. and MBA from… err… the names of institutes from where he got these degrees are not listed on his site, but never mind. And most importantly… (in fact it is so important that I thought it should not be placed in a list, it should be stated in its own paragraph) you get a degree from IMI Eurpoe!! Yay! So what if it does not come under the purview of AICTE, UGC or other state acts… who cares about a job in India when IIPM is placing you at Planman Consulting offices in different countries! So throw away that CAT 2005 examination entry card and join an IIPM today. This post is dedicated to Gaurav Sabnis… an honest hard working man, who has fallen prey to tactics of IIPM just because he asked a few valid logical questions and used his right to freedom of speech. Not to forget Rashmi Bansal, editor of JAM, who is being attacked on personal level by so-called IIPM alumnus. All those posting mean-personal comments on her blog, here is a million dollar idea I will give you for free… instead of defaming her on personal level by calling names try to justify claims made by IIPM and defend your institutes’ stand with rock solid evidence. Update: If you think Indian blogosphere is inconsequential… think again! For Berkman Center at Harvard Law School would like to differ on the subject. In fact there is so much being written against IIPM and “Prof.” Arindham Chaudhari that no amount of advertisements can cover this up. Here are few brilliant, rational and logical deductions I came across in blogosphere. 1. Berkman Center’s Article 2. Question of Principles 3. A note on IIPM controversy 4. Taking Stock 5. An Open letter to IIPM An updated complete list of people condemning IIPM, its strategies and policies… but most importantly defending freedom of speech can be found at Sambhar Mafia and DesiPundit Now try slapping every single one of us with lawsuits and we shall face it… and rub it in your face. The only way I see IIPM can ever pull through is if they write an apology to Gaurav for causing all the trauma and compensate for his loss of job. Also, apologies to Rashmi are due who faced a lot of personal attack. And last but not least… release an apology to public for releasing misleading facts in mass media. Update2: Copied this from a Neha’s blog’s comments section… IIPM Student said... Gaurav Sabnis lost his job at IBM today because of the legal proceedings against his blog. Hilarious? Think again. As for mediocrity, do me a favor - when you're in Central London next, take the tube to CHancery Lane station, and when you climb up to the street, you'll see The Flagship - a 100 year old building with Gothic elements. IIPM has acquired that property, and will use its IMI brand to start it MBA course there this summer. Times of India and The Hindu are carrying this story. That building, and IIPM's plans to enter markets in London and NY, are not medicore. Instead of trying to shoot down a succesful Indian education enterprise (non-profit), you should be proud of the entrepreneurial skills IIPM is imparting to hundreds of deserving young people in India. Just because they don't pass the CAT in the 99th percentile, doesn't mean India does not need (desperately!) many more business graduates than the IIM's provide. And if you think IIPM kids are being cheated, well there are 3000 of us right now - we can take careof ourselves. ANd anyone, like you, or Gaurav, who tries to hurt IIPM or its students reputation will be dealt with with the same lack of dignity and respect that you have chosen to speak of us. IIPM is a great institution, and you are misinformed. I urge you to contact the folks at the institute to learn more. Oh the guy means so well… guys and girls… stop whatever you are doing… stop blogging (at least) and go to that “Gothic” building (whatever that means?) and admire its beauty. After you are done with that… go to IIPM nearest you and ask for more information and broachers, for we are misinformed. Use that information and broachers to read more crap-load. Well, here is another brilliant idea, why don’t you just back off a little and go do some work with 3000 buddies, subject to condition there is some work to be done at Planman. If there are no cases to work on go have a drink, we won’t notice a difference in your logic even if you are drunk. Update3: The good news keeps coming!! Seems like Higher Education in India has gone to dogs these days. After IIPM here is news on AMITY's Directors. And this time it is not coming from JAM or Tehelka... it is coming straight from Ministry of External Affairs... so nobody question this! Update4 What started off as a fun and humorous post by yours truly is getting into a serious thing. We are seeing the first ever blog revolt in India (may be the world… I am not sure and unlike IIPM I don’t want to give misleading fact, thus this disclaimer). Here is one humorous article from Gawker. Also it has been brought to notice by Arzan that as of now IIPM does not have any office in Toronto and it just another lie. Or may be they haven’t updated their site, so as to remove the office contact details, since they closed the office. Too bad this is all happening when schools are having holidays and most colleges have mid-term break. So we are all free to read and blog. Just a stroke of bad luck and bad timing for IIPM. Update5: Having all the time in the world and fueled by amusing comments of so-called IIPM students, I am reading more and more content on blogs… as they keep coming! Don’t worry… I am not posting any more links… as I know you won’t have time to read all of them… but here are two excellent paragraphs taken from two blog posts. Links are provided because I don’t want to get involved into copyright infringement lawsuits… my dad’s lawyers are busy making a defense against IIPMs’ lawsuit… notice of which will be served sometime soon. From Sepia Mutiny’s post… Gaurav made the most astonishing and difficult choice— he left IBM. A blogger resigned. No, he wasn’t dooced, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some version of [word] “Gaurav” is entered in the urban dictionary soon. [example:]
To Gaurav: (verb) to leave a job because of blog posts which you do not and should not regret.
And another one from POV… (corrected the spellings) …he [Gaurav] could have let them burn the laptops. It is really no great shakes, and would have probably allowed more public glare on the corporation. Afterall IBM doesn not technically own the Think Pad brand. It sold it last year in an over billion dollar deal to the Chinese giant Leveno. I really can’t imagine a Chinese company taking the threat of PC bur[n]ing very seriously. They would probably see it as an opportunity to sell more Think Pads. I hope IBM does the honourable thing and refuses to get intimidated by threats, and refuses to accept Gaurav’s resignation. Update6 I went into feats of laughter after reading this comment by IIPMsucks… I am gonna put this legal guys email address in all porn sites. Tht perverted dirty asshole deserves it. Trying to play around with peoples careers with their profit making intentions. These fuckers wont stop at anything. Somebody ought to castrate all these assholes at IIPM. Still laughing!! :)) And finally IIPM is number one at something...

The End

2005-10-10T20:35:00.000-07:00

This whole blogger movement against IIPM and supporting fellow bloggers, may be the end of print media as we know it. I mean newspapers can no more mutilate and bias news in favor of their advertisement sources. People after unearthing truth will spread the word and there will be no stopping it. Blogging rules!!

Me = (Matthew Kidman) - (Girl next door)

2005-10-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

I am Matthew Kidman minus the girl next door. I’m referring to the character from the movie “The Girl Next Door”. Just like me he is a senior at a top school, faced with options… question on moral fiber… peer pressure… etc. But most importantly when Elisha asks him, “So you are graduating… you must be going nuts right now. What’s the craziest thing you done lately?” He was as clueless as I would be in similar situation. Imagine this. I am sitting at a café, sipping on my tall mocha reading The Eldest and a drop-dead-gorgeous (I came up with this term while interning in Canada and got a gorgeous girl into tease-trap because of it, more on that some other time) walks in and asks if I mind if she sits down at my table. Ok if you are wondering why this deviation of circumstance from the movie, here are two reasons… 1) I don’t have to take out thrash when at home. I am treated as a prince during two days I am visiting family. 2) Infernal hell-like structures of boy’s hostel eliminate any chance of have a “good” view outside window. (for more on this view thing, watch the movie and you will know what I am talking about.) So we start talking and get to know each other… she is amused by the fact that I am graduating from a good institute and would like to know a little more about life outside academics (some people who know me might say that life at academics is non-existential in my case, whatever). Thus she pops the questions…. “What is the craziest thing you have done lately?” Stumped! In fact, clean bowled… just like Ganguly. Should I tell my night bike ride to India Gate? But there was nothing exciting except for a malnutrition struck dog barked and tried following me. But he lost interest within few meters as I sped away. Oh this ones good. We went to see Mangal Pandey… first day… third show… no reviews referred… and didn’t get tickets, so we bought them from a black-guy. No not Afro-american, I mean one who sell tickets in black. That is one crazy thing… we could have been caught… it’s illegal right? (Even the memory of those 150 bucks bring water to my eyes, the movie was not even worth 15 rupees.) I told my hostel care-taker that he is a moron… straight to his face… in his own office. Usually I am friendly with everyone… so friendly that even hostel’s guard knows my b’day. But I just can’t stand this guy. He goes out of his way to make my life miserable. Well this guy and George… arrey wahi apna George Bush. Almost flunked a paper this time in mid-sem exam… this is crazy!! I mean cream of the country going sour; these situations must be what constitute Arjun Singh’s worst nightmare. Ok I haven’t done anything crazy lately… may be I am waiting for my girl next door to do crazy things. :p

21st century fairly tales

2005-10-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

A few days back a Portuguese girl added me on Orkut. I didn’t know her, nor do we know a language common to both. But whatever conversation we had with the use of Babel Fish told me she is a nice lady. And beautiful at that. (Well Brazilian and Venezuela girls are generally gorgeous… so no big deal.) I know I am not mirror cracking material or anything so when 4 of her female friends added me today… I got a little apprehensive. Should I approve friendship or not? Why are they adding me… am I good looking as per South American standards (slim chance) or is it some cruel joke in development. When I told this to one of my friend he started asking me what I did to get my acne treated, for he contributes this to my clean-n-clear faced picture on Orkut. I know most guys believe that things like cosmetics and hair care are for girls, but not in my group. In my friend circle even guys are worried about looks… some are worried about receding hair lines (not just Mayank, notice the use of plural)… other is worried that he looks too slim… one is going to get Rihnoplasty as soon as he can afford it! Anyways, coming back to the point… I told him that I used medical treatment about which he can read on my post (a little advertisement never hurts). After an hour and few minutes long discussion, during which shows like “Average Joe” and “Diva on a dime” were quoted, we came to one conclusion… anyone can look smart/beautiful, if he/she can afford it. I bet in 21st century fairy tales would go something like this… Princess: “Mirror mirror on the wall… which body part should I spend my saving on?” Mirror: “I think you should get liposuction done on arms. And honey, if you can afford it get a new wardrobe please, I can’t stand it anymore. Bloomingdale’s has a sale going on for the weekend.” So the princess went to her plastic surgeon that made her more fair and shapely. Then she went to Bloomingdale’s and got a new summer/autumn wardrobe. On her ride back she met this taxi driver, who was originally a prince but spent all his money on plastic surgeries and thus was earning his living the hard way. Princess had her driving license revoked and prince had no apartment (sold it to get new jaw shape and the taxi) so he moved in with the princess (inspired by Saalam Namaste). He would drive her to all the places and she would cook him all sort of dinners when he came back from day’s hard work. And so they lived happily ever after, getting surgeries and treatments every few months. After reading these stories, 10 year old toddlers would go to their mom and ask if they can get fake denture to cover the fallen teeth till new one refilled the gap. After all they don’t want to miss chance of getting princess because of a missing pearl in the row! PS. A new story at Creative Clutter.

WE, the irresponsible

2005-10-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

“Hey Ghate, can we borrow your laptop?” “Excuse me!” “Yaar the thing is we are doing this play and we need to project some images on backdrop and we needed a laptop for it.” Now I know this guy very well… I mean had he said it was his presentation or something personal I would have given him anything, but I hate this collective pronoun “we”. Though involves a lot of individuals, it has no responsibility on it what so ever. If anything goes amiss… everyone in that “we” is pointing finger at the next guy. I learnt this lesson the hard way. Once when I was naïve I would lend anything and everything to the dramatics team… after all I like the drama club of IITD. So one guy needed a faded black jeans… and he borrowed it from me. After the event he changed and told the non-acting-freshers-supporting-team to clean up and bring back stuff to hostel. Even God won’t know what happened but I never saw that pair again. I checked with everyone on team. Well it was worth thousand something and I could live without it… but laptop! Give me a collateral of 50k and backup of all my data and you can borrow it then damn it! Otherwise don’t ask. Sorry, I don’t do favors… not where I have to put thousands at stake.

26

2005-10-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

Having plenty of time on hand, I was surfing web (I always wondered why they call it surfing… you surf at sea… it should be transverse the web or something, anyways) and came across this Sect of Homokaasu. You remember that movie, Omega Code, which was based on philosophy that all events of past and future are predicted in Bible, encoded numerically. Well these guys believe in something similar. And thus they have this Gematriculator which tells if a text is good or evil. Seven is considered as God’s number and 13 a number of bad luck. 13, as per Christian mythology, is second only in nature of evil to 666. Anyways, I ran Gematriculator on my last post and here is what it had to say… The text is 67% evil and 33% good. (Duh! Look who is the author!) More interestingly and surprisingly here is what it had to added… Amount of letters 2281 2+2+8+1=13 Amount of vowels 940 9+4+0=13 Add the two… 26!! Though I don’t believe any number to be good or evil, I do believe that you are stuck to a number and you live with it. We have a family history with 13. My dad’s birthday is on 13… mine is on 26th (13x2)… I bet my son would have had it on 39th only if there were sufficient days in a month. My dad has a relation with 13 and I have it with 26. Dad’s CA roll number ended with 13, he lives in a house number 113. My IITD entry number is 2002326. My bike’s registration number ends in 3526. There are other instances which I can't remember right now, but they occur and it amuses me. So you see I am related to 26, which is a simple fact… neither good nor evil but interesting. PS It makes me wonder if there is some relation to the fact that there are 26 alphabets in English... related to me??

A couple of things I have on my mind...

2005-10-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Minors are the time when I jump start my brain and that means a flood of thoughts... and given the fact that I don't have to study... they turn out like this... Since baldness is a phenomena absent in females... will estrogen shots stop baldness in males as well? What would be the side effects? Should I do a research project on this? Will Mayank volunteer as test subject? Will I get grant for this project? If a chicken crosses a road and is hit by a car, do other chicken discuss about it? Do other chickens make strategies from experience and case studies of dead chicken? If a chicken crosses a road successfully, does he/she boast about it? Do a successful chicken gets a title like... The one who crossed the road or Road Crosser. If two friends play giving missed calls... who pays for the cost? I mean equipments are being used to connect the call, electricity is consumed... so what if they are not talking! The connection has been made... how does company recover money for this usage? Is Mazda 6 a better car than Pontiac G6? Mazda is more comfortable but low on mileage. Pontiac is better on average but more costly. It's like Opera and Firefox, each has some features lacking, few other has. Well, you can install both but you can’t buy both, can you? Life is a risk! I mean life is about choices and choices are always risky. Especially when they are irreversible and have consequences I will have to live with all my life. I can go for a Ph.D. and give my life to research in physics. I can go for MS... and live the American Dream. Take up a job, in software or something totally unrelated to physics, and turn my back on physics forever. This is one choice I will have to live with, for rest of my life. But then I have to make it.... live the choice I make. Update Okay! Seriously, I mean taking the last point a little more seriously. I want to apply for a Ph.D. and I defiantly don’t want to go through tons of word lists… so US universities won’t accept my applications. Well EU universities will consider me. Now before I decide with university, I have to decide which country. Sweden is a nice option. Everyone keeps telling me it is a fast paced country, welcoming foreign students with flush of funds. Nice option, but the intern return tell me there is nothing more to life there. On the other hand go to Switzerland… nice universities and nice place. It will be like three years of (ahem!) honeymoon, you know. One of my friend recommends UK… no language problem, super renowned universities. And most importantly living in a college… just like you read in Wodehouse’s novels. *starry eyes* Germany is known as the center of technology research in EU… it is economically strong and everything. So another nice option. I am so confused where I should apply!! Every country has it’s advantages… and it is so damn confusing. And if I should apply for a Ph.D.? I mean would I be able to take it… for three years?

Tie the tie and get going...

2005-10-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

Some time during my second year, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. I “almost” got a chance to perform as well. Anyways, before the show got canceled, I had already written some pieces. There was this one about tie and marriages… while wearing tie and attending marriage during weekend... I was reminded of this piece… and though a lot of acting and performance goes with the dialogues and it may not seem funny on paper here is the piece. Today I am wearing a tie after three years or so. In school I really liked wearing those fancy things… I could tie a knot while on the run. Okay! That didn’t come out right. Anyways, today I realized how utterly useless the thing is. I mean it doesn’t hold your shirt in place like a waist belt; it doesn’t cover your body part either, as it is already covered by the shirt, it always gets on your food plate while eating, adding the cost of dry cleaning a silk tie and no, it does not make you look smart. For people who disagree here is a simple question… have you seen those nice suits that have round neck shirts… well they are lot more smart-looking! The only use of the tie could be to my foes… who want to strangle me. You see, it facilitates the process… you don’t have to grip my neck… just pull the chord… just like a bell cord… and let it tighten itself. In fact they have given special acknowledgment to inventor of tie in the book Strangling for Dummies. Most of the times you wear a tie on formal attire… simple put those are only two situations… when giving presentations and attending marriages. Surprisingly you don’t curse tie so much while you are at a marriage. You are cursing old relatives and annoying younger cousins. That reminds me… you know how your two year old cousin is cute and girl magnet. Well just wait till he is 10 and naggingly follows you around the dining hall… making you miss opportunities of hitting on girls. I mean, why else would I go to a marriage if it was not for opportunity of hitting on beautiful girls. And of course good food. No, more importantly good food. Had it not been for good food I would never go to a wedding… not even mine, for anyways I can't flirt with girls on my own wedding day. PS I thought for a change I should stop cribbing about my imperfect life and see it in a lighter mood. A good meal and a couple of new female friends is something I should be thankful for.

Overheard

2005-10-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

On one fine Sunday afternoon, a father gets free from his usual duties and thinks about his son. Not that he doesn’t think about him, but this time he decides to call him for chitchat. The son in question, on the other hand, has just got back from a mock CAT… having the first bite of the day… and playing some playful songs to get out of depression when his phone rings. (Mp3 ringtone: “Boulevard of broken dreams”, so you know the guy is depressed from CAT preparation.) After the small talk, dad gets into a serious mood, totally in hindi film style Dad: Zindagi ke barein mein kya socha hai? (What have you though for your life? Implying what are your future plans.) Now the right thing to do here would be rush to a corner in hostel where there is no connectivity and the call hangs up. But the Maggi in one hand keeps him from running. Son: Either get into IIM or get a job. Dad: How is CAT preparation going on? What was your percentile in last mock? Son: [mumbles something sheepishly] Dad: Sorry… come again. Son: [mumbles once again] Dad: Anyways, I interpret this as not very good. And what about job? Son: Placements start in December…. Dad: And all the jobs will be taken by students with high GPA. So tell me what are your plans again? Son: Well I have extra curricular credentials. Dad: Like what? The dude in question is a total dupe… he is not good at any sport… neither has a godly status in any RCA event. Son: JAM Dad: You like eating it or you make good jam? Son: No I meant Just-a-Minute. Dad: Oh congratulations! All the companies in the world are now hiring people who can talk complete nonsense without any speech defects… great opportunity for you. Ever seen a 20-something about-to-graduate guy with watery eyes… ya! The site is not funny. Dad: Let us for a moment suppose that companies are hiring in your GPA range, what kinda job do you want? Son: [to himself: if I say I haven’t thought about it… I am doomed] Well any kind of job… data analysis, consultancy, coding… anything which does not involve optics, optical networks, fiber optics, optical communi… Dad: I get it. And where would you like to be placed? Son: Anywhere outside India where I can drive my car at 80mph and the whole area is seamlessly covered by Wi-Fi. Dad: That foreign intern has gone to your head. All you guys think that they should move to some developed country and…. [what followed was a long patriotic lecture, during which the guy finished his Maggi and an assignment.] PS The person in discussion is not me. Though it gives the impression that it is me… let everyone be informed that my parents are not so much in favor of living here and serving the country funda. Also, my dad is not so sarcastic.

Heart-break and answers.

2005-10-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

Ouch! It feels like… you do good in exams and then your peers say, “Ah! It was an easy one.” It feels like… you get a great book for a friend and he says, “Have read it already.” It feels like… a kick in the crotch. I am referring to the comment of a spineless anonymous guy who at the end of my previous post claims that he has seen the quiz in Encarta. Here is some sense for him… Q7, referring to “The Princes of Malibu” was a series conceived sometime in May 2005 and aired in June 2005. The only edition of Encarta that has come after these dates is Encarta 2006 (release date: 12 Aug 2005, the quiz was conducted before this date) and I have already searched through there quiz section without being able to located even one question similar (forget same) to these. In fact Q5 is so out of league of Encarta that they can’t think of it in next million years. I mean connect 3 objects to get one person and then connect these 4 persons… woah! Microsoft will be world rulers before they make such a quiz. Anyways, it hurts when people claim, falsely and anonymously, that the quiz was ripped when I spent 2 good evenings making it… evening I could have spent snogging and/or drinking. Here are the answers… (I know I am giving them before Wednesday, but what the heck… Handa has answered most of them already.) A1. John Constantine A) Birthday of John Constantine B) John Constantine (in comics) was made to look like Sting. C) Plays the title role of Constantine in the movie. A2. Peter Pan A) Plays the title role in movie Peter Pan (2003) B) Description of the segment “Peter Pan in Kensington Garden” from the book “The Little White Bird” C) Statue of Peter Pan in St. John’s, Newfoundland A3. Linus Torvalds A4. Stephen Hawking A) MC Hawking, the lyrics were not sung but synthesized by text-to-speech software. B) Stephen Hawking has appeared on all the shows. Pink Floyd’s Keep Talking. C) The wizard (actor, Ian Brown) is reading “A Brief History of Time” (from the movie Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban) A5. John, Peter, Linus and Stephen (In fact Constantine as well) are regal Christian names and considered as papal names of holy origin. A6. Phil Collins A) Middle name of Phil Collins B) A band he played with as a drummer C) In next line Phil Collins gets mentioned. A7. David Foster A8. Jedi A9. They made different versions of “Prince of Persia”. A10. Jargon A11. They can be written on a simple calculator using digits.

My quiz....

2005-09-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Inspired by this and this quiz I decided to post the quiz I conducted in Canada (yes, I was participating in Quiz Club of the University and was invited to conduct one). Except for the first question, which I added while posting because it fits the pattern of Q5, rest are from the original quiz. I have put in hints wherever I thought questions were too obscure given the change in venue and nationality of participants. Q1. Connect these three… A) May 10th B) Sting C) Keenu Reeves Q2. Connect these three… A) Jeremy Sumpter B) This passage,

“_________ escapes from being a human at the tender age of seven days. He, having been a bird before he was a boy, believed he was still a bird, and so he flew out the window to the Kensington Gardens. He soon discovered that something was a bit off about him, so he flew to the island in the ------------ (makes the question too trivial) where all the birds-who-become-children are born.”

C) And this picture.
Q3. Name the guy.

________ is married to Tove. Tove is a six-time Finnish national Karate champion, whom he first met in fall 1993. ______ was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendants to send him an E-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date. They have three daughters, Patricia Miranda, Daniela Yolanda and Celeste Amanda, and a cat named Randi. They moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to ______'s place of work. He worked for -------- (makes the question too trivial) Corporation from February 1997 until June 2003, and is now seconded to the Open Source Development Labs, a Beaverton, Oregon based software consortium.

Q4. By now you know what to do… A) “__________ is a fictional nerdcore artist who gained some popularity in the early 2000s, largely due to the availability of his music on the Internet. It may actually be a stretch to consider the music rap, as the lyrics are not spoken. __________'s entire body of work and his imaginary rapper personality were created almost entirely by American web developer Ken Leavitt-Lawrence” B) He has been featured in Futurama, The Simpsons, Dilbert, Pinky and the Brain, Star Trek: The next generation, Family Guy and gave his voice to parts of one Pink Floyd song. C) The picture.
Q5. Connect the four people from Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Q6. Connect these three… A) David Charles B) Genesis C) These lines… (Song: Stan; Artist: Eminem) Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Call-Or-Write-My-Fans, this'll be the last package I ever send your ass It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it? I know you got my last two letters; I wrote the addresses on 'em perfect So this is my cassette I'm sending you, I hope you hear it I'm in the car right now, I'm doing 90 on the freeway Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive? Q7. Identify X.

The Princes of Malibu is the story of two lazy brothers, Brandon and Brody Jenner - the sons of Olympian Bruce Jenner and songwriter Y - who are on permanent vacation in music legend X’s house. Now living with their stepfather (X) and their mother, the boys use X's property whenever they feel like it, and do many things - some unintential, most otherwise - to annoy X. Although their mother, Y, thinks her sons can do no wrong, X forces the freeloaders pay rent in order to continue living in his 22-acre mansion, Casablanca. To get the money, Brandon and Brody do all sorts of things, including washing cars, creating a drive-in movie theater on X's front lawn, and working at Target. Oh, the life of luxury is gone for the brothers - and a life of sanity is slowly going away for X.

Hint: X is a multi Grammy Award winner Canadian. Also here is a blurred picture…
Q8. Name the religion.

According to the Bureau of Statistics' final tally more than 70,000 Australians (.37 percent of the population) identified themselves as devotees of the _____ religion in last year's national census. This travesty began with a chain email campaign in New Zealand urging "---------" (makes the question too trivial) fans to "legitimize" the fictional faith by specifying it as their creed on census forms. If enough people would do so, the emails claimed, the government will be forced to officially recognize it.

Q9. What is common to these three companies… A) Brøderbund B) Red Orb Entertainment C) Ubisoft Q10. Fill in the blank. (One word fits all the blanks)

The original ________ File was a collection of hacker slang from technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL), and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). In 1976, Mark Crispin, having seen an announcement about the file on the SAIL computer, FTPed a copy of the file to MIT. He noticed that it was hardly restricted to 'AI words' and so stored the file on his directory as AI:MRC;SAIL ________. The file was quickly renamed ________ > (the '>' caused versioning under ITS) as a flurry of enhancements were made by Mark Crispin and Guy Steele. Unfortunately, amidst all this activity, nobody thought of correcting the term '_______' to 'slang' until the compendium had already become widely known as the _______ File. Perhaps the term '_______' gave the compendium faux seriousness.

Q11. And finally a naughty and little obscure one… what is common to all these words/phrases… BOOBIES, LEgS, LESBO, hELLO, ShELLOIL, OhIO and gO2hELL (Hint: My CAPS lock is working fine… there is something especial about capitals here) Post answers in comments. In case some question is left unanswered, chances of which are slim as they are not-so-unworkable, I will put explanatory answers on coming Wednesday.

Everyday Politics

2005-09-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

Many people are of the opinion that I think a lot and talk a lot about politics, not restricting to IITD campus. Well, I realized that I do talk a lot about it after reading my own comments on this post. In my two comments I think I have mentioned the word politics and things related to it at least five times. But before you judge me let me explain.
First, I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing/speaking about politics… it is not a dirty little game. It is way of life because according to me politics is not just about elections and posts, in IITD or in Parliament. Politics is what is happening between Ganguly and Chappell. Politics is about giving truthful answers to parents without giving a shock. Politics is about being right and in a diplomatic fashion. Politics is about getting a birthday party from a friend who is trying to wiggle out of it.
You see politics is an every day affair… because I don’t attach the word to just elections.

Statutory Warning

2005-09-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

Never ever take me seriously. And I mean it… if you do, liability of any damage caused to you or your property will be on you.
I say this because recently a friend of mine took empathy and made her own life miserable in the process. I was just kidding and everything lead to disastrous events… so in case of doubt if I am serious or acting serious, presume I am just kidding and acting serious. PS This post is mutually exculsuive form the previous one. With this post... I am back!

A curtaining smile

2005-09-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

This time it is not me who is writing the post… it is one of the dearest friend of mine in IIT. Mayank Bhangadia needs a little introduction… or none at all (within IITD at least). So instead of writing any more words, here I let him say words this time… There isn’t a day when people don’t notice my ever growing forehead complimented by retraction of hair line. They all enjoy making mean jokes about it, well this is the only area where my bright personality lacks when compared to my fellow fools! Every time I am reminded of this, it brings me in a state of stress… no… not because they remind me of the precious hair I am continuously loosing, nor because I am at the receiving end of fun, but because none of them sees the existence of stress in my life, which is responsible for all this. No they never do! My last month’s Hutch phone usage over shooted and so I was asked to make an interim payment, delaying which outgoing of my phone was temporarily stopped. A situation like this itself is bad enough to make an extrovert person like me feel uneasy and under stress! While coming out of the Hutch customer care in Ansal plaza, I and Anna (more known among populace as Ashish Nagar) simultaneously saw a person standing with some gadgets under a banner “FREE STRESS TEST”. Both of us got interested and decided to investigate, reason for attraction being different for both of us. After knowing Anna for three years it was not difficult to guess that it was the word “FREE” which was calling him, while I was attracted more by the latter part, STRESS TEST. The sight of the banner brought me new hopes, if this machine could read my worries, my stresses; it will be no less than a best friend! The person told us about the inventor of this stress testing machine, a nuclear scientist, who discovered that some extra charges were generated in the body while it goes through the state of stress, which makes the needle of the machine deviates drastically because of some phenomena related to physics and thus pointing the areas of stress. He started explaining the phenomena in detail which itself became a cause of stress. In spite of being a final year student of Engineering Physics, who was made to study a lot of nuclear physics, I was not able to relate the working of detector to any concept I studied the night before the exams. I, honed in the skills of deception by sitting through lectures for three years, was able to make him believe that I understood everything without showing any signs of stress at my face. He asked me to hold two handles and then think about various issues in my life which makes me think often. I could notice Anna who had already started thinking about me, can I have such an issue?? I mean as big an issue as I am in other people’s life. At the same time I was happy, this was the way by which I could show Anna and everyone else that I also have stresses… I am no extra ordinary person… please don’t go on the smile I carry… please don’t go on the jokes I crack… please don’t go on my cool attitude towards life… please take me seriously… well, sometimes at least… please read me just like this machine will! I started thinking, being a five point someone… I thought about the recruitment going to take place next semester… I also thought about the CAT going to take place, just after three months and preparation for which are yet to start, how could I not think about the break up with my sweet heart… and now I had a new stress, seeing the needle make no movement, declaring everything is under control! To top it all the person in stand was accusing me of not thinking anything and not taking it seriously, “hey mister, I can swear, I am thinking a lot, believe me, why wouldn’t I??” “No”, he said, “Stress more!”, I started thinking of more things, this time thoughts also included customer care given by Hutch while charging so much, I also tried pitying myself by looking at undeserving men carrying beautiful, model-figured girls in their arms in the corridors of Ansal’s, I also thought about the three courses in which I was awarded the “F” (Fail) grade, which I have conquered in second attempt, how could I forget the employer in Germany who denied reimbursing the return airfare he promised before leaving for the summer internship, the pick pocket I met in a metro rail in Paris, and obviously about the four Maxwell’s equations which have a nasty habit of slipping my memory and what not…!!! Well all this also could not move the needle even a little bit! I continued with the stress-needle not moving, but this time I wasn’t alone, but the person testing was also in some stress, he had never seen such a person who claims he is in stress but the machine shows nothing! He could therefore not offer me any counseling, nor was he able to make me buy any of the books written by the inventor of this stress machine, he kept starring me with a little stress unable to find any stress. I was disappointed again; I realized it was much easier to fool a machine than people. Friends, did the machine also take my stresses, my worries for granted or am I a sensitive person perfect at the art of hiding? It was only a few hours ago when I was sitting with Pradyot at Barista when he told me about his blogs where known/unknown friends read, understand, react to everything he feels, he writes, I was filled with hopes again, this time its no machine, its you, yes you, so HERE I AM… ~Mayank

Pointless

2005-09-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

While I was reading a post about yours truly, which the person writing it think is mean to me *confused as to why*, may be it is and I am not getting it because I am light-headed these days (side effects of 'selective memory alteration', but more on that some other time). Anyways, I also went through the post below it (as if I wouldn't). And that is when I realized that it was as if I was reading about myself, as I was some 4 years back. Introvert. A little bitter. Limited number of friends. In fact, then even I would have conceded the post as mean… but some how I have lightened up. Took a back seat in life and did things which I always wanted to do. Made loads of friends… passed time doing absolutely nothing meaningful. For example, today late-evening spent an hour at Rainbows just eating 1 pastry and chatting away with friends. Then spent another hour over coffee at Barista… talks during these two hours can be best categorized as “meaningless humor.” But when I pass out from this college… some years down the line... these are the times that I want to reflect back upon. Rather than reflecting back upon some sorry assignment or being an introvert sitting in my room… revising lecture notes. I want to have a fun time… I was extreme introvert and now I am a lot more outgoing, still won’t say an extreme extrovert… but yes, now I am comfortable with people. There are a lot of things that I have changed about me… I have grown more confident about myself… can take a joke and rumor about myself very easily. Talking about rumor, I recently heard from a friend, “Yaar tune abhi tak apni gf se milwaya nahi.” (You haven’t introduced me to your girl friend yet.) I was like… huh? “Yaar abhi tak to mein bhi nahi mila.” “Mazak mat kar yaar.” “Nahi seriously! Koi gf nahi hai… kisne kaha tujhe?” “Yaar jab tu intern par gaya tha to poore friend circle mein yahi charcha tha… tune kisi bahar ki bandi ko propose kar diya and you two are going steady.” WTH!!! Steady my ass! It is funny how people can believe what they hear. As for the title… that is what the post is… pointless… there is no moral of the story here. PS I know it doesn’t make much sense. And the second paragraph may sound a little offensive, as I am being skeptic about personality traits the author uses to describe himself in his post, but none is meant. Update It is four in the morning and I have nothing better to do but reflect on the day that went by. I remember talking about writing a movie script or something while we were talking at Barista. Everyone was thinking that our group could write a fantastic comedy script (and I bet we can). But when I said I could write the essential senti ending (TOW the guy confesses that it was his harmones playing tricks and father of the bride says it was old age that made him do all that nonsense etc.) On my this comment everyone laughed. Was it just the moment or am I a stolid comic guy outside the perimeter of Creative Clutter? Or the stories at CC are also comic but people are just being polite and not pointing it out!

G-attack

2005-09-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

While surfing the net I came across this one site, which tells you a lot about Google that most of us didn’t know. Well if you read “Privacy Policy” and “Terms and Conditions” you will know half of it, but then again how many of you read it while installing Google Desktop Search on my recommendation. Well what most of you missed was a line which said that we will be getting some information from the tool to improve our services. Same line is present in Google Tool Bar installation as well.
Ah well, every single software does this these days, but the big deal dawned upon me when I saw this site Google Watch. Big Brother and Creepy Gmail are two must read articles. To this add the latest potential personal information gold (read: data) mine, Orkut and Google becomes one of the biggest personal information tracker in the world. Add Gtalk and you have interpersonal relationship tracker as well!!
Well one of my friend, Nikhil, and I were having a discussion on monopoly set-up by Google and I had, and still have, opinion that if you don’t establish monopoly some one else will… because establishing monopoly or desire to establish it is a basic instinct, which has been observed in intelligent animals like ape as well. But the more important question is are we ready to sacrifice personal information, because even if we shun Google the next big search engine will do it. Is there a solution to it? Even if we stop using Gmail and Google… go back to Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Search, why won’t Yahoo! do it? Who ever is in shoes of Google will be doing the same thing. In fact I must confess, that I came up with a business plan where Microsoft and Google, if cooperate, can become the biggest spy organization of the world. So next time you are reading mail or web surfing just think how personal is your personal information.

Great Expectations

2005-09-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you are bored to death by what you have been doing most of the last 24 hours because your college festival sucks and was washed down by rain… well, I read blogs… random blogs picked from blog circles I usually visit. Some times when you do crazy things like these you find nice posts. Like I found one from some girl named Sayesha… the post described some rules she would like her boyfriend to follow. And by rules she meant liberties he can take… like he is allowed to forget anniversaries, tell her she is getting fat, hang out with his guy friends, go to war movies even if she is not coming, check out hot girls (and she will even point them out for him). Now that is what I call an awesome girl… for more read her post. No surprise she got 70 comments… I bet 60% of them are proposals. If a girl has similar kind of expectations plus puts her hand on mouth while talking and chewing at same time, considers cell phone conversation perfect substitute for face-to- face conversation and likes bizarre jokes which you will have to think on to get them… call me or drop a mail.

Deadly

2005-09-23T02:51:00.000-07:00

I heard Rufus’ Hallelujah song twice in last 24 hours… and none of it on my winamp. This song is played in most sentimental situations and it always works. The two episodes that I watched, Scrubs - season one and House – season two.. both used it when a patient died or was in mortal danger and it - the songs - did it’s work. I tried using it once (or rather lyrics) in my story Freeway Part 2 and broke my arm trying to pat myself on the back (in case you are planning to read the story… please read the first part before the second one, otherwise it won’t make much sense). I like watching medical serials because some part of me wanted to be a doctor… the only problem being I just can’t stand the site of blood and organs. But this post is not about my ambition as medico. The House episode was about a 9 year old having a terminal cancer. Though she survives the episode her life is not more than that of a year. And that made me sad… shouldn’t there be an age limit on dying. I mean you can’t die unless you are 20 or may be 30 or 16, but the bottom line is... there should be a lower cut-off… that a human below this age can’t die. Some sort of guarantee of body. The worse part of the episode was when the girl walks out, the doctor say to another doctor, “She might outlive you.” You never know when it is over, until it is over. The Scrubs episode was about death of an old lady… a 74 year old jolly good natured lady. She could live for another couple of years with the use of dialysis, but she refuses with the reason, “I have done everything in life and ready to go.” And just to prove her wrong our young doctor JD comes up with a list of things that every person should do. She tells him that rather than making this list he should be doing those things… another touchy moment. All I am saying is give me a lower cut-off and an upper deadline! Everyone knows that we get a lot more done when we have deadlines. So better than a lower cut-off, we should have a perfect known lifetime. Like we should know this is the number of days you live. So you can allot time to have fun… learn and achieve… responsibilities… etc. So that we can manage our time and do everything we always wanted to.

Fourth and final time

2005-09-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

In past few days I have been reading a lot of comics on Batman, Wolverine, etc. along with Transmetropolitan and other non-generic graphic novels. So it is no surprise that format of this post is borrowed from comics’ titles. Anyways, behold my experience of Rendezvous over last three years and plans for the coming last one. Prad – Year One It was the first time and thus we, I and my friends, were pretty excited about it. Volunteering for security team meant I could get into any events without waiting in lines. After complete day of fun, in the night we headed to AIIMS for Pulse. We never had passes and thus had to jump a 7-8 feet back wall to snuck in. Most of the time it was couple of guys hanging out, hitting on girls and doing all kinda stupid immature stuff. Coming back early in the morning and taking a nap was only because of biological need of sleep. I was not an insomniac back then. Prad – Year Two Political consequences of hostel senior losing election of BRCA G.Sec. started sinking in. Having absolutely no positional power in Rendezvous, I was not as excited as last year. Anyways, I attended all the events I possibly could without time-jumping. I now had a friend in a medical college, who arranged for passes at Pulse this time, so thankfully no jumping over seven feet walls that year. First day I turned up at Pulse with a girl from IIT (don’t ask) and she, the girl from medical college, was visibly disappointed. So second day I went alone and after Pulse damped out took her to a 24-hour Barista and told her this was a platonic friendship. We are friends even today, glad that I went for coffee that day. Prad – Year Three This was the most fun filled Rendezvous of my IIT life. Not just because we were having coordinators in hostel and my PR had grown to an extent where I knew more than half of the activity heads very well. It was most fun because a girl from NIFT had asked my number a couple of days back and she actually called after taking the number!! What are the odds of this, it’s the other way round most of the time, isn’t it… the guy asking the number and then calling… right? So that year there was no booing and cursing the bands that sucked on rock night, not were there any cat-callings at fashion night… well not at least by me. Not that male community missed me, because I am too mellow to boo hard and even more mellow when it comes to cat calling. This fling with NIFT girl didn’t last long and we parted ways after two months from the day of meeting. Don’t ask me why, I can’t tell a lie and I don’t talk about a person’s bad habits behind his/her back. Prad – Year Four Once again my hostel mate lost election of BRCA G.Sec. I have gotten used to not being in positional power now. My heart goes out to the guy, he totally deserved to win, but then again politics is never about qualifications. Do not get me wrong here, by no means the previous sentence imply that current G.Sec. is unqualified or incapable. Anyways, I am in no mood for festivities this year as I have lots of things to catch-up on, beside comics. Oh that reminds me, I got to go, some urgent matter is at hand. Update:Only three sponsors... there is something missing in Rendezvous this year... no posters of main events.... may be that is what is missing... hmmm... got it.... joy in my heart is what is missing!

Yada Yada

2005-09-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is usuall yada yada from me. More of an attempt to test Blogger for Word. Google sure does know how to keep it’s users happy!! Publishing from word is so comfortable and just a click away… as opposed to 4 clicks through the browser. Go Google!!

For all those people who were waiting for my random loooooong story to start… first chapter is up on <a href=http://demiurgeous.blogspot.com/>Creative clutter</a> Please leave your comments so that I know if it is making any sense to people beside me. (Though must confess that it is not making much sense to me.)

It's Clobbering Time

2005-09-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

… backward castes certainly have more confidence and higher social esteem. But I don't think village India will flatten until it gets better schools, health clinics, and every child gets a chance. Nor is it a problem of money either. The dirty truth is that government teachers, doctors, and nurses in villages don't perform and we don't sack them. Our state has failed utterly to deliver services to the village. Prof Nirvikar Singh's fieldwork shows that even a single Internet kiosk in a village can lower transaction costs, provide education and health, and raise the village's productivity. (Taken from this article written by Gurcharan Das based on the book “The World is Flat”.)

There! Back in your face, to all the people who cribbed about my article on India’s 58 years of stagnancy. You won’t listen to a fellow Indian, but when a New York journalist says the same things you will give him accolades and applaud to his in-depth understanding of Indian rural areas. That is the bloody importance -and attraction towards- fair skin. Also I have been planning to write a skeptical post ever since Sensex touched 8000, but the increasing number of people ready to give me a black eye kept me from it. All those who think I am too much of a paranoid when it comes to Indian economy read BT 9/11’s article “Seven clouds…” (couldn’t find a net link, so you will have to do with a paper copy). This article has really given me a confidence in my understanding of economy and share market, reinforcing my skepticism. So I will go out and make a prediction: Sensex will fall by the mid-end of October i.e. end of Monsoon. And since I am in ass-kicking mood let me ask you all, who criticize me for not thinking economy is as bright as it seems, go and take a look at TOI’s (I know a certain Mr.Sinha and Mr. Handa are giving a scowling expression on mention of this “stupid” paper, but anyways) Sunday Special, All that matter section. Here is the MOST important paragraph of the article…

What is not so well known is that two-thirds of our outsourcing exports come from captive Indian units of multinational corporations. The entire industry was kick-started by General Electric, and others followed. So, India's most dynamic export sector is not Indian at all but foreign-owned. In official economic terms, such service exports are Indian exports. But in pure business terms, they are the internal trade of MNCs. Now, the aim of these MNCs is not to promote the Indian economy or employment. They are simply looking for ways to cut costs. Thus the private profit of MNCs has become the driving force of India's biggest boom industry, increasing jobs and dispersing benefits all over the country.

So even in terms of official economics it is great!! In terms of business and development it is not so great. PS If my memory serves me right someone on had asked me read this book “The world is flat” in comments section. Could the person please lend me the book, it is too costly for me to buy it.

Wisdom of two days

2005-09-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

For people who missed their daily dose of Pradyot-blabbering my apologies… for those who didn’t miss it, for all I care they can go to hell… cya there! For past two days I was busy making presentation for mid-term BTP (B.Tech Project, for uninitiated) evaluation, chatting with friends (and wasting their precious time), searching LAN for Iqubal’s song (the one that goes “Aashaien dil ki”) and writing a story (longest I have ever written, it actually has chapters). Okay, no more usage of parentheses in this post. I can’t write out a long post because I have a Sim CAT on Sunday and a large wager has been placed on it… so I stand to lose a big time if I don’t score well this time. So here is in short the wisdom that has dawned upon me in past two days, there is seriously something, or may be something seriously, wrong with the world. I mean my presentation actually went better than expected, SRK is publicly sitting in a bathtub selling “Lux” beauty soap and people are singing “My heart goes mmmmm….” What else indications do you want? The story I am writing has been put on a halt for the weekend and thus no need to visit Creative Clutter… will put up a link here when ever I am done, which is not anytime soon and anyways, I am no JKR to cause millions of people to sit on edge of their chair waiting for me to complete my story. Ciao! PS Again for people who missed their daily dose… get used to it, I might get a life after all and reduce my presence on blogging world. Update: On a slightly unrelated note… after Tarannum case of match fixing, which proved for the millionth time that match fixing is a tangible factor of cricket, do you still watch/enjoy the sport?

No MS... no PhD... thank you!

2005-09-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is the reason why I don't want to do a MS or a PhD. Oh by the way, this is one from the site mentioned above, for all the girls @ IITD :) And this one for everyone... enjoy!

A clueless writer and a sarky IITian

2005-09-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

The attempt of sarcasm in this post is subtle (feeble?) so you might want to read this article (most of you must have read it already, but just in case). An uncle of mine, Electrical Engineer from IITB, originally sent the article to me as a joke in 2002. Recently this article was re-sent to me by Phoenix, which encouraged me to write this post. Back in 2002, when I read this article, I did not find myself articulate enough to ridicule it. So after 3 years and a few months here goes my attempt. Back in 2002 after reading this article, sent to me by an IITB alumnus, I was thinking of dropping out of IIT and joining NIFT. Kidding. actually after reading this article I was laughing my ass-off. I had just returned from a swimming competition and was about to go and prepare my debate for another event. Anyways, these activities are immaterial to the author for life revolves around being in company of stylishly dressed, beautiful people, liker there are in the nearby fashion institutes. Though the fact remains to be debated if beauty is just cloths/skin deep? The concept of “Beautiful mind” has clearly passed on the author without making any mark. The author seems to have a keen interest in physics and maths but remains oblivious to the fact that engineering has more to it than these two subjects. Had he/she taken some time to really study, he/she would have known that there exist different levels of calculus, which are not taught at high schools. The conversation with an IITian is totally cook-up because if the guy was so utilitarian about time allotment, he would have probably said only two words… “Hi! Bye!” and moved on. Time and again the writer comes back to the fact of IITians, their female counter-parts, their girl friends and spouses. All I have got to say in this department is one line, “The author is as clueless about this topic as he/she is about calculus.” Resnick and Halliday?? The author has never heard of the word Quantum for sure. They [referring to girls in general, remember that girls and having their blessed companionship IS the central theme of the article] have long figured out that the really successful people in life do not work as engineers. The successful people in life either sing, or dance, or act, or design cloths, or run motels or sandwich shops. And going to IIT does not help you do any of these better. In fact what the IIT grads learn are things like computer design and programming, so they can be the slaves in the side businesses funded by the people who either sing or dance or act or design clothes, or run motels or sandwich shops. Did you know that after reading this Steve Jobs has given-up his title of CEO and applied at Starbuck! He wants to serve sandwiches and coffee there, but Bill Gates already filled the place. Unlucky Jobs… not without an interesting job. And also that secretly Jack Welch was running a motel chain in southern Florida while leading GE and it was these motels which were funding GE. Damn! Had I know/read these lines before I would have taken up course in motel-room-service instead of registering for Programming Languages and Computer Architecture. I think a lot of these people are under the misguided impression that anybody here in the US cares which university they graduated from. Only if the directors of “60 minutes” were half as intelligent as this author they would not have traveled all the way to India to make an episode on IIT. As for the pick-up lines… I never went to US, but may be Canada qualifies as younger brother of US and here is my first hand experience. I very scrupulously avoided mentioning the name of my university in public gathering, because as soon as it came up… one of the ‘smart’ person would say, “Isn’t it the same university that was featured on 60 minutes.” And on my small nod go into questions like how hard it is to study there, what is the selection procedure, how many credits we have to do every semester, etc. etc. Anyways, as IITians have been already branded as snobs I would use it as an excuse to say, “I find it too menial a job and below my dignity to keep writing any more.” PS It is surprising how a re-read of the same article, after more than 3 years, still gave me fits of laughter, just like it did in the first place.

Tidy the life and tag the blog

2005-09-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

I said I won’t be coming back anytime soon… but everything got sorted out fast and here I am. In case you are wondering about my insignificant problems here is a small list… 1. While updating my laptop’s BIOS rom I flashed it wrong way and so it went down. Had to fix it! Turned out to be simpler than I anticipated. 2. My bike got a puncture and that was to be fixed before 11 am today, as I had to take a mock CAT. Had to drag the bike all the way from hostel to gate (around 200mts) and with every step blessed my parents for making me buy Discover instead of Pulsar. 3. Study for mock CAT, which needless to say I didn’t and ended up with a pathetic score as usual. 4. Got tagged. This is so rare for me… I have been tagged only twice in my short existence on blogging world. This thing will be taken care of by the time this post ends. So without further ado here are my tags… Tag 1 I have to write a short story… a really short one at that. Less than 55 words to be precise. So here are my 55 words. Rain He walked slowly with rain drenching him. Stepping in every puddle, not caring about expensive leather shoes, with thoughts of his loving wife who always hated it when he came back sneezing. He turned another corner, pressed the door bell. The door opened and he shouted, “Why the hell you didn’t return my umbrella?” Hopefully it made you smile, it was meant to be comic in a bizar life-is-like-that way. Tag 2 According to this tag, I have to answer some tricky questions… Five things I will look for in my fiancée 1. Must love fast food. Yes! Absolutely no wiggling out of this… not on pretence of staying slim… not for the fact that it is unhealthy. In fact she should not even mention that it is unhealthy. We will go for a jog to make-up for that pizza and also get to spend more time together. I always find early morning time romantic. 2. Talkative. Should be capable of talking a lot, not necessarily of consequence, but should have something to talk about all the time. I just can’t stand people who can't live-up their end of conversation. 3. A musical ear. I am deaf when it comes to music. I ape it and thus need guidance in selecting songs. And my sister will talk my mom into agreeing to the fact that she is “good” only if she has a musical taste. 4. Should not crib about my funda of universal gifts. Flowers and chocolates are perfect gifts for all occasions and that means Friendship day, Birthdays, V-day, Anniversary, ________ (fill in any other occasion you can think of). 5. Hate all Ekta Kapoor type serials. Bonus points if she likes F1, Tonight Show or Scrubs. Five things I like to eat This is simple… 1. Deep fried shrimps 2. Paneer/Chicken tikka. 3. Omelet 4. Pizza 5. Wine (ammi jaol khabe) Five goals of life 1. Visit France with family. 2. Have a company of my own with its headquarters in Delhi, Frankfurt, NYC… (other places are yet to be decided) 3. Learn to bake a pizza base and cake. 4. Own a 16 bedroom house, each bedroom allotted to one of the family in my relation, so that they don’t have to carry too much luggage when visiting me. 5. See you happy. Five things I say a lot 1. Chill yaar. (Or something of same effect) 2. I don’t care. (To most of the things) 3. Huh (one of the bad habits I acquired recently) 4. Yeh to meri poorani gandi aadat hai (Translation: This is my old bad habit) 5. Adios. Now the interesting part… who continues to do it. For the first tag, Phoenix, Andy, Anjul and Vibhor HAVE to do it. Second has to be followed by CK (aka RCGM), Jasmine, and Ross (aka Rustagi).

A religio-political issue.

2005-09-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

I always wondered who made words. I mean every new edition of Oxford dictionary has new words added to it, where are these new words coming from? Without getting into history of English, let me ask a simple question, who came up with the word “Bling”? Now who ever did, without flouting the brother, I can say I have superior IQ than him. So I have coined a new word (which you might see in some edition of dictionaries very soon), “Religio-politics.” It means, 1) Politics played on grounds of religion (example, elections of Narendra Modi) 2) Religion playing political moves (example of which I will give through the rest of the post). Done away with the formality of defining new term let me come to crux of the post. After trying to study for CAT whole afternoon and playing NFS Underground 2 for whole evening, I was watching the late night US open match. I passed a fleeting comment saying, “Why do girls have to wear short skirts and low neck shirts, flashing their underwear every now and then while guys can play in shorts and v-collar tees?” This does not imply that I want male tennis players to wear transparent shorts. The meaning will be clear in a few lines from now. When the match was over we switched over to a news channel. The latest religio-political issue being discussed was… Sania Mirza’s dress on court. And high order maulvis were making ridiculous remarks on it. Some of the arguments given were, “She is role model to other Muslim girls, and thus she should wear cloths according to religion.” Ya, make her wear a black burka on a sunny day on an open court and expect her to win a grand slam! What could be more ridiculous? Well I will tell you what can be more moronic. One of the guys sitting with me said, “Hey! May be you should join Muslim Law Board, you are pretty much against short skirts.” The guy couldn’t be more far from reality. Let me explain my stand on both of the issues… 1) First, statement regarding short skirts and shorts. I made that statement because I know it for a fact that – at times - sponsors make female players wear cloths that they do not want to (remember the case of Venus Williams and black Adidas dress?) I have no problem with girls wearing short skirts… I have a problem with sponsors and organizers forcing the dress on players. If a player is comfortable with playing in sports bra… what the hell! I don’t give a damn. But if tomorrow Wimbledon or Adidas forces a dress code on a player I sure have a problem with that. 2) I have issues with maulvis for their insane idea that religion is getting corrupt because one girl is wearing short skirts. Hello! Is there any scope for religion to get more corrupt? We are already fighting stupid feuds over land (Babri Masjid) and trains (Godhara case), there is no scope for more deterioration of any religion. Also, it is impractical for Sania to play in a full-length skirt! And since when did religion start dictating what to wear? It is my firm belief that of half of the religious beliefs that we have are result of politics played within religion (this episode being the other example of Religio-politics) and have no roots in Vedas or Quran or any other so-called religious books. They are made-up bogus concepts by high order persist of past or present, who were more interested in retaining their power and thus introduced these politically correct morally wrong concepts under the cloak of moral issues in religion. Instead of supporting her, the board with crab-mentality is pulling a national player down. Another perfect example of male dominated society. In my humble opinion, if forced, Sania should abandon Muslim religion and take up some other religion, which allows her to play tennis. In fact she can start a whole new religion named Nisent or some other anagram of tennis or even not adopt a religion! There is no column of “Religion” on passport forms… then why does one have to have one? We can do without it. If Hindu Personal Law Board stops me from wearing something I want to, I will abandon it in a jiff! Because according to me most of the pseudo-laws passed by Religious Boards today are results of religio-politcs and I am strictly against it. PS I am usually in my “I don’t give a damn” attitude, but for once I am looking forward to a people’s view and heated discussion on this touchy topic. I won’t be writing any new post for a while (have other things to take care of) and this should give you, the reader, ample time to react to this post. Movie Review: Salaam Namaste is a very apt title.. you say Salaam (interpret as good bye) to the movie even before you say Namaste.

Why can't I be 8 again?

2005-09-09T03:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday is always a wonderful day. I just have two classes in whole day and I bunked those yesterday so that I could go and see my aunt who was visiting Delhi. Meeting her means I get to see my 8-year-old cute (the only other time I use this word is when I am talking about iPod mini) twin cousins. While we were chatting and having gala time, I sneezed and one of them said, “Place you” instead of the usual formal “Bless you.” On asking what does it mean in reference to sneezing she honestly said she didn’t know, she just saw it on Small Wonders (one of the re-runs both of them watch religiously) and innocently copied it. I love this part of being a kid. You can make mistakes, give a smile and everyone will think it was cute. This quality wears-off by the time you come to high school. For example, I had a Versace shirt in high school which I passed-off under the brand name of Zodiac, for I didn’t know the right pronunciation and didn’t want to be laughed at. The second person I met yesterday and the conversation I had with her will need a more stolid view-point. In the evening I was meeting a friend for an over-due birthday treat (his not mine). I reached the designated restaurant to find his girl-friend sitting alone sipping cold-drink… as usual the guy was running late. As I have know her for over a year now, we started talking over the appetizers (knowing her boy-friend’s habit of turning up late, she had already ordered). During the conversation I told her the famous Seinfeld joke about girl-friends thinking that her bf is coming along, while the truth remains that he is going nowhere. She was predictably defensive. Now how do I tell her that when in male company how much of a rascal-wolf the guy is! In fact not just this guy but any general guy. Well, I think everyone knows how different the guys act in female company. And please, don’t even get me started how girls act different in male company. (Instead read this post and add the quality of bitching, slang talking, gossiping, swearing, etc. and you will know how different they are.) The whole incident made me ponder on the question, why can’t we all go back to being 8-year old, simple and honest? Be ourself with all our faulty qualities rather than being pretentious. PS Hate the game not the player.

Lifehouse's Breathing

2005-09-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Instead of boring you with usual blabber, I would like to share lyrics of an amazing, but less-known song... Breathing by Lifehouse (you might remember it from Smallville's episode about Prom night) I'm finding my way back to sanity, again Though I don't really know what I am gonna do when I get there Take a breath and hold on tight Spin around one more time And gracefully fall back in the arms of grace I am hanging on every word you say And even if you don't want to speak tonight That's alright, alright with me 'Cause I want nothing more than to sit Outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing Is where I want to be I am looking past the shadows Of my mind into the truth and I'm trying to identify The voices in my head God, which one's you? Let me feel one more time What it feels like to feel And break these calluses off me One more time 'Cause I am hanging on every word you say And even if you don't want to speak tonight That's alright, alright with me 'Cause I want nothing more than to sit Outside your door and listen to you breathing Is where I want to be I don't want a thing from you Bet you're tired of me waiting For the scraps to fall Off your table to the ground I just want o be here now

Return of Yuan

2005-09-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Once again it is that time of the day when my brain is overloaded with events of the day, things that my eyes read, conversations my ears heard and thoughtless ideas. Then it finally settles on to one topic and starts doing the aftermath, result being a post on a totally inconsequential blog. So here goes… Okay, so I read a very brilliant article today in a magazine, which is not published on the net. So I will try to give you some lines from the article, which should cover the most of it. The rest will be covered in my feeble attempt to how it is related to India, you and me. The article is titled, “Chinese Trade” and talks about China’s recent 2% appreciation of Renminbi (better know as Yuan)

The 2% move also proves that China knows that it is too big now. It cannot be pushed around… China still has 300 million surplus workers and a huge number of rural poor. So, it faces huge challenges. It can do without currency volatility, especially after it witnessed the meltdown in Southeast Asia that devastated their economies. China is more focused on domestic demand, reforms, foreign investment, exports and employment generation… China has huge surplus capacities and labor, and is so desperate to keep its economy humming at high levels of growth that its exporters will simply reduce its prices by 2% and by further devaluation so as to protect their exports. The trade deficit will get corrected only when the US consumption goes down, probably with a fall in property prices and rise in interest rates. It has nothing to do with currency value… By abandoning its peg, China is sending a clear signal that its demand for dollar assets will be much less now. This is part of a continuing focus on other Asian central banks to reduce their overweight position in dollars… Malaysia quickly dismantled its peg in favor of a basket system immediately after China announced its revaluation. The move can go a long way… The bid for dollar-denominated assets will be removed. With it will go the subsidy that Asians have provided to US interest rates…

How does this all relate to India? In a good, bad and ugly way. I have been called unpatriotic, treacherous, paranoid, etc. at numerous moments. Especially when I wrote posts like India 2050 and 58 years washed away. But without hesitation and fear of being called names once again I would say that India and more importantly Indians should realize what is happening… Indian economy is in danger. So let us start the ugly consequences that this will have. China’s move from dollar-peg means that dollar will go weak and since US is the main country Indian service industry caters to we will lose in terms of exports. The service industry is completely useless when it comes to producing anything of value of Indian market. Simply put for every dollar-call, we were getting Rs.43.50 now we will receive lesser. For China it will be beneficial as Yuan will grow stronger, not immediately but within a couple of years, and that will result in more expansion and investments overseas. It will not effect Chinese exports, as is made obvious by the article, because of the fact that exporters will reduce the prices by 2%. The revaluation accompanied by fall in interest rates insures that consumer market within China increases and it becomes less dependent on exports, which is a very good move. Japan, 2nd largest economy in the world, faced three recessions in last 10 years because of the fact that it is an export based economy with very small consumer market within country. This self-reliance, if achieved, will make China the strongest economy in Asia, a position for which India is also competing, and eventually become strongest among the world. According to a report by Morgan Stanley, it is estimated that two years back approximately $350 billion were pumped into China with a hope that revaluation will give returns of 8%. Since the appreciation is of only 2% it means, in a very layman terms, China got a cheap loan of $350 billions at 1%/annum! The good part is that in global scenario dollar will weaken down. US won’t be able to use it as a economic-weapon as soon as trade deficit is taken care of. US will have a lesser grip on petrol prizes. Good news for India is that we still have two to three years to device a way to counter forces, which this move will generate.

Mom... I want to be...

2005-09-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

You remember this post of mine… where I was unable to tell what I want to become. Finally I have decided what I want to become. Remember Charles Morse from the movie “The Edge” (the character played by Anthony Hopkins)… well that is what I want to become. He is a billionaire, knowledgeable and everything. In fact he is so knowledgeable that he is said to know everything there is to know. I want to be that guy. BTW another story on Creative Clutter. Update:Finally, relief from the painful wait for comments page to download. Just click and... Voila! comments are there to read. God bless Rustagi, for I saw this concept on his blog for first time.

Agony of living among rowdy bast@***

2005-09-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

Ghate’s Law of Freedom and Foolishness Given a certain degree of freedom, the human will behave in most foolish manner possible within the limited states of freedom. For example, now that minors are over here are some things every IITian can do: a) Open up his computer and investigate why a weird buzz is coming from processor fan, while watching a nice movie on laptop and munch on pizza. b) Go out with gf/bf and have a nice dinner-n-movie date. c) Booze till you puke and then start throwing beer bottles around. No prizes for guessing what is going outside my room. Minor (or mid-term exam) time is one of the most painful time in semester. Not because I have to stop doing things I categorize as fun and study for a while. After all you do get bored of going to parties, hang out with friends, watch movies and have fun. It is good to study for a change. These times are painful because people are coming in and asking for things like calculator, pen, notes/photocopies, etc. The bad thing is that when they borrow it they do not take any responsibility of returning it. They will lend it forward to some one with a careless note, “Return it to Ghate.” Now some people might consider me unorganized but I never lose anything. In my 20 years of existence, things I have lost are two pen, a lunch box and shades. That’s it… four things in 20 years! Not bad eh? So I really hate to lend and eventually lose things. But this is just during exams. The agony of minors continue to prevail a day after the minors. People start to drink and get high as soon as exams are over. Now I have nothing against drinking… I do it myself once in a blue moon. But only in form of wine so that nice dinner has added flavor or sip some beer to keep company. I really hate beer though; it makes you fat, tastes like rotten apple juice and gives me a headache. I have objection against getting high and breaking beer bottles or teasing people who don’t drink. Worse form of getting high… puke! Disgusting as the act is, it does happen in large number in hostels after minors. And thus I hate minors. Not because it disturbs my schedule of royal living but because of lending/borrowing that goes on followed by high-night.

Sensitivität (German for Sensitive/Allergy, or so Babylon says)

2005-09-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

As bigger problems in life got sorted out (or have been ignored for time being) and exams, as usual, are incapable to keep me busy- I have noticed that my feet look different. I mean, they look different than what they used to a few days back. Reason: They have white pimple kind of structure all over which is itchy. Reason for this abnormality: I think, like many other things I am allergic to, I am allergic to the plastic my new bathroom sleepers are made of. In case you are wondering as to what those other things might be… here is a small list: a) Velvet. As soon as I come in contact with this material my breathing becomes heavy, I start choking and find myself unable to speak and water starts coming out of my eyes. b) Chalk powder. Has same effect as velvet. This gives me a very good and valid reason not to sit in first few rows. I don’t want to choke and disturb the class. c) Peanut butter. Naa… just kidding. I love peanut butter, but it is surprising how so many people can be allergic to such a taste thing. d) IIT Mess Food. I start to feel like throwing up. Get indigestion and my taste buds go numb for hours. e) Cleaning ethanol. Beside the fact that it makes my hands extremely cold... it also has a choking effect and makes rashes on skin. f) Guys who think half an hour late is fashionable/IST. My angry vein starts to throb and I get frustrated. Hormones start raging and I feel like killing the person. g) Girls who think every guy is a MCP. (MCP = Male Chauvinist Pig, latest addition to my vocabulary) I just feel like crying out loud…“Well… hello!” h) Company of people who watch the movie because actress is sexy (read putting up skin show) or the actor is a hunk. I feel like I should buy their tickets and keep the seats vacant. Better still watch the movie alone in my room. i) Hindi songs in-between Hindi movies. Especially when they are in most inappropriate scenes, like in Mangal Pandey. Ouch! Even mention of this movie hurts. I squirmed in my most comfortable seat last time I saw those meaningless misplaced numbers.

colloquium@physics.iitd

2005-09-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

For people who think interns are about going to Europe or Canada and have fun, here is a speed breaker. All the fun is followed by you sitting through a course called Colloquium, in which you give a presentation of what you did over the summer in one class and listen to other telling what they did over the summer in rest of the classes. It would be fun as well but the things you are allowed to tell are strictly technical and thus boring. If there is one good thing about Physics Department @ IITD, it is that no matter how hard professors make an attempt to suck fun out of our life… we find it somewhere somehow. So how did we convert Colloquium (read most-boring-class) into fun? Read on… First of all we made some things mandatory-to-follow for person giving presentation. They are… a) Bring cold drinks and Sip-n-Bite’s famous samosas. Quantity should be enough to last through the painful hour. If we are not drinking/eating, we will ask nasty questions and make presentation miserable. Small price to save grace… right? b) Add 2 pictures of yourself in some exotic place in start. Add 3 pictures of you hanging out with friends, preferably in a pub or discotheque. (The rowdy crowd cheers if there is a firangi girl in the picture.) c) A friend who will click the mouse and roll slides for you, while you stand at the podium. This guy should be competent enough to change the slide exactly at the time when professor is about to ask a question. Then he should waste enough time in going to previous slide so as to make the prof forget the question. d) Nice MS PowerPoint template. For fellow students will judge your presentation on this factor alone. Now some people outside Physics Department might consider this fun enough, but for us it is just the beginning. What else we need? Here is list of things that students watching the presentation should bring… a) Camera Phones. To take pictures when (i) a fellow student is sleeping, (ii) people are choking over cold-drink or fighting for samosa, (iii) prof is pretending to read while his spectacles are in his shirt pocket, (iv) person giving presentation is yawning. b) iPod/mp3 player. Or else you will have to listen to what the guy is speaking and you don’t want to do that do you? c) Comics. We are here in IIT to learn and develop our skills, what better way to learn than read. Also in 4th year it is time we decide what we want to become… Batman? May be Hulk? Some are even considering Nagraj!! (Yikes! Filthy snakes.) d) Crisps/Chips. They go so well with cold drink and samosas. Try it… you must. e) Friends. Yes people from other departments are always welcome… common in, share food and drinks… we love company! For people wondering when is my presentation… it is on 8th of November and everyone is invited! (Mark your calendars.)

Thanks for helping me pass time.

2005-08-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

Maggu: Hey start studying man! It is exam time. *Excited like a true maggu* Me: I am working, go away. *Type type type* Maggu: What are you working on? Me: None of your business. *type type type* Maggu: Chatting with GF?? *Cheap smile that make my vein throb* Me: Nope. I don't have a GF. *type type type* Maggu: Why are you not studying? Me: Will you leave me in peace if I tell you? *Stopped typing* Maggu: Yes. *Grin that pisses me off* Me: Because I don’t have a paper tomorrow. *start typing again* Maggu: What are you typing? Me: Why are you still here… you said you would leave. Maggu: I lied. Me: *Kicks him in crotch.* Maggu: Ummmm… *He would have cried out loud, but my non-kicking foot was in his mouth* (FYI, maggu is not a proper noun, he is a person from cult who think studying is a religion. Simply put... maggu = studious IITian and that does not mean ever IITian) Damn, in all the incident I got so pissed off that I smashed a mosquito sitting on my laptop's LCD... how do I clean it? :( Update: I don’t know why, but exam times are the times when you get to hear best talks of all the time. Here is another conversation I had with my friend… Me: Had your lunch? Friend: Yup! Me: Where? Friend: Mess. Me: Common, accompany me to KL. (KL= local 0.5 star restaurant) Friend: You didn’t eat in mess? Sleeping? Me: Nope, not sleeping. Just avoiding mess food. Friend: Aisa kab tak chalega Ghate? (Translation: How long will you keep avoiding; Ghate = Me) Me: One more year dear… just one more year. And seriously, I need advice on how to clean mosquito blood from LCD.

Blog 101

2005-08-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

Nope that is not title of new course to be floated in IIT, but considering that there are so many of us (bloggers) in IIT, administration should seriously consider such a Humanities course… it will be full before Data Structures, I bet! The title is a simple indicator of number of post published on this blog till date… yes a loooong century. Through the crest and troughs, this blog acted like a good tattling friend of mine… telling the world everything I told it, though I really wonder how many people really read it. I never kept count of visitors because I didn’t see the need. I wrote not to see how many liked it or hated it or read it… I wrote because I felt like it. There were times (3 or 4, I am not sure) when I almost quit blogging, but changed my decision at the last moment, for better or worse I leave it to you to decide. There have been some regular visitors and some irregular ones (who visit only because I pester them) and many who came because they were subjected to my shameless self-promotion. I made some great friends through this blog and that is more than I ever expected as outcome. Anyways, all I got to say is, “Thank you guys!” (girls as well…)

The story and life

2005-08-30T02:29:00.000-07:00

I have got a lot on my hands right now... but I still wanted to complete the story I started yesterday. It was coming to me in a flow and I didn't wanted to obstruct it. I feared if I stopped in between it might never end satisfactorily, as has been the case with a story I started while on train from Quebec to Kingston. I stopped in between and now the story remains without an end. So I wrote it down and completed it. May be life is not about rationalization and prioritization. May be life is not a force of nature but an impulse... may be it is not in years but in moments.

Reboot

2005-08-29T01:06:00.000-07:00

Just when I am about to give up on life thinking it is too complicated and declare myself incompetent to cope, there comes along a friend who tells me how askew his/her own life is and makes me wonder, ‘Hmm… my life is better after all.’ This is exactly what happened with me yesterday. So with a new hope I went to classes today. I have been going to classes for past three years… today I attended classes. Made notes, listened attentively and answered a question prof. asked, which proves my brain is not dead yet (yay!). And just when I thought it is getting better… sun came out and started shining. Birds started chirping. Not that they were not doing it before… but I noticed it. Yesterday’s episode of trouble on Orkut due to a freak got sorted out. I got to know that my mock CAT score was not that bad, the test was pretty steep by general standards. Seems like life has rebooted. PS Another update @ Creative Clutter do give your feed back there as well. Adios!