Computer Language redefined ...

# Local variable

Mein pal do pal ka shayar hoon,
pal do pal meri kahani hai
pal do pal meri hasti hai..

# Global variable

Main har ik pal ka shayar hoon
har ik pal meri kahani hai
har ik pal meri hasti hai

# Null pointers

Mera jeevan kora kagaz
kora hi reh gaya.

# Dangling pointers

Maut bhi aati nahi
jaan bhi jati nahin.

# Goto

Ajeeb dastan hai yeh
Kahan shuru kahan khatam
Ye manzilen hain kaun si
Na woh samajh sake na hum

# Two Recursive functions calling each other

Mujhe kuchh kehna hein
mujhe bhi kuchh kehna hein
Pehle tum, pehle tum.

# The debugger

Jab koi baat bigad jaye
Jab koi mushkil pad jaye
Tum dena saath mera hamnawaz.

# From VC++ to VB

Yeh haseen vaadiyan
Yeh khula asmaan
Aa gaye hum kahan.

# Untrackable bug

Aye ajnabi, tu bhi kabhi, awaaz de kahin se.

# Unexpected bug (espl. during presentation to client)

Ye kya hua, Kaise hua, Kab hua, Kyon hua.

# Load Balancing

Saathi haath badhana
ek akela thak jayega
mil kar bojh uthana

# Modem ( modem talk on a busy connection)

suno - kaho,
kaha - suna,
kuch hua kya?
abhee to nahin..

# Windows getting open sourced

Parde mein rahne do parda na uthao
parda jo uth gaya to bhed khul jayeha

Long Live Bachelors

Almost everybody in our group (at work) is either already married or ready to get married. In this scenario there are talks that the productivity of the group would touch new lows in the not too distant future. People are trying to dissuade others from marrying with some quotes, which go as ...

Long live Bachelors
Every man should get married some time; after all,happiness is not the
Only thing in life !!

Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
--Oscar Wilde

Don't marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper.
--Scottish Proverb

I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years.
--Sam Kinison

Men have a better time than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.
--H. L. Mencken

When a newly married couple smiles, everyone knows why. When a ten-year married couple smiles, everyone
wonders why.

When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife.

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back to home always.
--Anonymous

I asked my wife, "Where do you want to go for our anniversary?" She said,"Somewhere I h! ave never been!" I told her,
"How about the kitchen?"
--Anonymous

We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
--Anonymous

She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.

--Anonymous


She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, "Am I too late for the garbage?"
Following her down the street I yelled, "No, jump in."

--Anonymous


Badd Teddy recently explained to me why he refuses to get to married.
He says "the wedding rings look like minature handcuffs....."
-Anonymous


If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife yelling at the frontdoor, who do you let in first?
The Dog of course... at least he'll shut up after u let him in!

--Anonymous

Subject is not always essential

• The division of the sale price of a litre of petrol and diesel in Delhi, India. All prices in Indian Rupees

Petrol Diesel

Price/litre 47.50 32.46

Basic (Crude, refining 23.38 22.98

and custom duty)

Surcharge (State surcharge, 00.21 00.18

NRF, Shunting charges, RPO etc.)

Excise duty (Basic, cess and 15.17 05.20

Additional excise duty etc.)

Sales Tax (Cess, Additional tax, 07.74 03.54

Surcharge, state development tax)

Dealer commission + Sales turnover tax 01.00 00.56

The effect of taxes on the prices can be seen from above. The prices of petrol in Mumbai, India were increased by around Rs 4 some time back. After some protests again such a steep hike, the state government agreed to waive its part of the tax, but only on the one which I would have received due to the price hike. Even this caused the price to come by Rs 1.65.

• Telecom Italia, an Italian telecom company has started a call centre for itself in a rather unusual place. It has employed people accused of various crimes who are serving their terms in jail and has started a call centre in jail. Now, this is a model which can be replicated but with some caution. This is definitely good for the jail inmates who have some worthwhile job to be done. On the face of it, the advantages for the company outweigh the initial constraints and some disadvantages. However, it needs to be ensured that the system does not become a tool for the proliferation of crime in any way.

• As one moves higher in the hierarchy of a company, the work one does sometimes seems too simple for the kind of paychecks and perks it accompanies. I recently heard that the job of someone who has around 5 years experience in a FMCG company of India (and who has risen to a particular level) consists of things like: 1. When people of his company come to him with a new soap to be launched, he looks at the new product and uses his full intellectual capability to come to the conclusion that the colour of the soap should remain pink (as is now) but of a lighter shade. 2. When people of his company ask him how can the sales of their company’s toothpaste can be increased, his experience comes into play and he suggests them to increase the size of the mouth of the toothpaste tube. This would lead to greater consumption, as whenever their customer uses the tube, more of paste would be squeezed out.

• An insurance firm in India was offering education plans. As part of their ad campaign they came up with hoardings which enumerated the steps in education. There were various versions, each depicting different logical paths followed by students in their education. So, there was one which said: 10+2 --> MBBS --> MD, which seemed conventional. However, there was another which had: 10+2 --> IIT --> MBA. At first sight, I found it to rather faulty, the assumption is that after studying from IIT, students would not want to tread the path of management education and would go into something more research oriented like MS, PHD. However, the hoarding was quite contemporary and took into account the fact that the above presumption is no longer true. These days, more and more IITians want to do an MBA or get themselves jobs at consultancy firms or investment banks rather than get into research. Even the people getting into core technology jobs prefer these jobs to be in firms like investment banks so that they might get an opportunity to switch to a more of a finance job. The insurance firm also had a hoarding version which went: 10+2 --> Engineering --> M.Tech. This only meant that IITians are not considered engineers (greater or lesser?).

• I have written about how mobiles are proliferating in countries like India. However, can you find those people who started these all in your city. I am talking about those original users who took to the mobile even when the rates were as high as Rs 16/min (incoming and outgoing; rates now at max of Rs 1/min for outgoing, with free incoming). These are the people whose numbers go as 98100…, 98200…, since these number series were the ones introduced initially. However, if these people would be the ones having the highest amount of the mobile bills is debatable (and even verfiable).

Discussion and more

I was talking to someone and he shared with me one of the principles which were told to him by his professor at his college. The professor said that consider a company with a president and some vice-presidents. Then if a situation comes where the company has to select a new president from among the vice-presidents, the one who would be selected would, more often than not, be the one who is in charge of Finance department. The person who told me this gave a few examples where he himself has experienced the same. Even I had observed this in some cases in the corporate world, where a retiring CEO is replaced by the existing CFO e.g. Indra Nooyi becoming CEO of Pepsi from CFO.

One of the reasons for this is that working in the Finance department makes you knowledgeable of a large variety of issues concerning the company. Every employee of the company is affected by different departments of the company to different degrees. But most of these are indirect. What happens at the company’s marketing department, the production department etc. is important but only at a macro level. Also, the involvement is minimal.

But when it comes to the Finance department, it is a different story. Firstly, the connection comes every month (in fact, saying every minute would not be an exaggeration) from the pay packet, the sole reason for people working. (If you disagree, and are ready to give a list of the reasons, apart from compensation, why you work then; ask yourself, what would you do if I give you say $50 million; would you still be doing your job?). Next, finance is at the core of everything. You have a worthy project in mind, you are confident of its success etc. but one of the first things you ought to do is to prepare a plan keeping in mind, what the management will feel about the revenue generation as well as the costs associated; whether the finance people have enough funds at their disposal; how can I put across to the people who would fund this, in a manner in which they understand what I am planning and why they should release their money.

The fact that you ensure that the finance people understand everything reiterates the fact that they become more and more knowledgeable. Also, as funds have to be sanctioned by the Finance department, irrespective of the department concerned with the project, everyone has to make contact with the finance people sometime or the other. And as such, the finance guys (I have recently realized that guys has become so common a term to address, that even a group of females is being referred to as guys; maybe this is because females keep on saying that they are in no way inferior to males) know everyone and everyone knows the people in finance. This makes them the default choice for the top position.

One other unrelated thing. There’s a conception that parents always consider their children as kids, irrespective of the age (physical or mental) of the children. The person I was talking to gave another remarkable insight. He says parents do not feel that they have no longer remained modern. This is due to the fact that they have always been “more modern” in their teens, when they saw themselves with their own parents. Now, they cannot somehow digest that their children are a few steps ahead of them.

One other thing he mentioned was that we should always remember the people with whom we shared some kind of relationship; wherein, it was not necessary for these people to behave in a manner which would be beneficial to us, but they did. Suddenly, what came to my mind was my stay at IIT. Though I can write the book with the most number of pages on this, I will cut it short to about one post. At IIT Delhi, I had been assigned a particular hostel, J but I started staying at my local guardian’s place, and so I no longer had any hostel room allocated for me.

Though there were not many close friends, I had formed a kind of group (now, incorporated in the bigger group called ‘bpappu’©) with fellow students of my department who were staying in one particular hostel, S. Initially, my contact with them was limited to the academic area and had not extended to their hostel rooms. It was not long from the time that I first went to their rooms, that I became an integral part (at least I see it as such) of the group and the hostel at large. People of other hostels at IIT started assuming (and still do) that I originally belong to hostel S. When someone asked about my hostel, I started to say ‘hostel S’. However, when someone asked my room number, the answer was not that apparent. Not giving the room number was also not an option (in that case, I would have to tell them the entire story). So, I started giving them room numbers of any one of the group members.

Some specific mentions are essential. Mr. KS has been very instrumental in my incorporation in the group. With nowhere else to go, I used to stay at his room for most part of the day; when we did not had classes or when we wanted to think that there were none; when I wanted to just vile my time; and even when I had some motivation to work. In short, if I was not in a lecture I was at his place. Initially, I used to think that he would not be comfortable with my staying in his room, but his sheer adjusting nature left me dumbstruck. I still feel that if I had been in his place, I would not have such an understanding behaviour. He never said ‘no’ to my proposal to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S, regardless of whatever his plans were and the time the proposal came.

Mr. RKM, Mr. AR were the people with whom I spent my nights. Now, before, you start jumping to conclusions, I mean these are the people in whose rooms I used to sleep at night. There was a single bed in their room so one had to sleep on the ground. However, unlike what normally would happen elsewhere, these two did not mind sleeping on the ground, if they saw that I had already fallen asleep on the bed. If the times we slept did not overlap entirely, they took care that I was not disturbed by their (and for that matter, anyone else’s) movements in the room. On the other hand, I was not that sensitive to their sleep and did not give the same kind of treatment (which they, surprisingly, never complained of.

Mr. NJ was the kind of person who would do anything for a friend. Though a nocturnal creature and sometimes hard to meet for a few days, yet, when in times of need, he was always the first to reach. He was the first to offer to give me a duplicate key to his room. The feeling was as if it was my own room. It made my life very easy as otherwise I always had to search for some hostelite (so that I do not find all rooms locked) before I can think of going to the hostel.

Though there are many others which require a mention, it is because of my laziness that I am ending here. Hope they will overlook my offense.

Letters from London - Zeroth

I reached London on the 9th of September, on a day when the climate was ready with a warm welcome. Now, almost half way through my stay, it has not given me any reason to complain. Though I can make this a long post by mentioning all the details of my travel, there is something more than the characteristics of my travel, which I would like to share; things which are so much different than in India.

One thing which I had heard from almost everybody who had been to a place outside India is the degree of cleanliness they experienced in the foreign land. Though I always believe that we ourselves are responsible for the untidiness we observe in India, but I leave that topic for a different post. What I will say though is that the information was indeed right. The scene on the roads was pretty different. The buildings, the shops, the roads, the traffic, everything was different. Yet, there was kind of a lack of awe which I had somewhere subconsciously expected. May be it was because it was me and any other person would not be writing this.

The amount of Asians you encounter is quite remarkable. For that matter the number of people who are not speaking English is also remarkable, atleast for a city like London, the capital of England. This only reiterates the cosmopolitan demographics of the city and that it can be said to be a land of the inhabitants. Even in my office, I encounter people of many many different nationalities. The Asians however are one class I can easily identify and hence admire their volume. This weekend I went to a place near West Ham, which is such that you definitely cannot distinguish from a place in Asia, if you just look around at the people and the shops. There were shops selling sarees, sweets (which is rare in this part of the world) and even freshly prepared sugar cane juice; shops playing Bollywood music (and for that matter, Himesh Reshammiya); gurudwara; temple and most importantly not a single non-Asian. It was kind of a small Indian subcontinent within London.

Some things, which I encountered in the city, I found remarkable. One is the amount of information provided; you normally do not have to ask anyone for directions. There are signs and directions everywhere and even a first time visitor can easily come to terms with the city, in that aspect. The railway, or the underground/tube, system and network is incredible. There are various lines or routes that are available. You can reach from any end of the city to another using these; though you might have to change trains/lines. Add to that a reasonably good bus transport which hardly leaves any place you will have to walk.

And finally a well integrated system of public transport with a single card (known as Oyster) which could be used for both buses any kind of line you want to travel. There are regular announcements in the trains as well as on platforms giving relevant up to date information about the services. Entire city is divided into zones and the tickets are based on zones rather than particular places. For a traveler like me, a good option is to buy a travelcard (available on the Oyster) for a week (or whatever time you plan to stay) of the zones you would be traveling the most and then travel as many times as you like. A top-up on the card would be helpful if you want to travel in other zones.

The people in general are nice. Though there is an initial reluctance to talk to them, yet whenever you come in contact with someone, the reluctance is rendered without any basis. In general, what I found myself doing was to put every person I saw (non-Asians) into categories or characters. These categories and characters were those which I had encountered earlier with my virtual interaction through Hollywood films, watching television etc. And some of the people fitted in the categories very well due to different reasons ranging from their attire to their looks.

Also, though I had seen the fairer sex to be obsessed with makeup, I found it to a larger extent here with females carrying all their tools in their handbags and using these whenever they had times available to themselves, like while sitting in the train. One widespread thing that people do in the train is reading. If its morning, we have people with their newspapers (many of which are available for free). Otherwise they do not forget to carry a book to utilize their time.

Vegetarians can come across some problems with the food, but I found these much below what I had expected. In general, almost everything is available in a form which is ready to be eaten (no surprises there!). And a feeling of independence (I do not want to comment, if this is good or bad) already creeps in when you are buying things alone from a superstore; things which you had never purchased earlier yourself.

I met some of my mates from my alma mater here on the weekend. They had been staying in London for the past month. They have started handling their daily homely chores rather well, and I sometimes feel if I would have been able to do so myself.

One thing that this trip has reiterated within me is my desire to stay in my own country. I just cannot find the incentive which would compel me to setup a base outside India.

What do you know of the world's oldest profession?

Up to now, when someone referred to the term ‘the oldest profession’, I interpreted it as you would do. For, by now I had come to know what, the user of the phrase, wanted me to understand. But, recently I came across another article which claims to challenge this. It says that ‘commodities trading’ is the one which should be holding the title. The title goes as:

“The idea of a commodity future in the true sense is not an invention of the 19th and 20th centuries but goes back over two thousand years. One of the earliest recorded types of commodity derivative was in options. Around 500 BC, a copper mining industry developed in the Mediterranean. When Phoenician traders had guaranteed a sale of material, space was limited on board the Greek ships to deliver their goods. To avoid this problem and put themselves in a position to trade, the Phoenicians bought options on vessel space to guarantee their business, at the same time allowing them to fix the price the customer would pay for the copper.”

A look at the Wikipedia entry for prostitution gives:

“Prostitution is often described as "the world's oldest profession." It has been thought prostitution (at least in the modern sense) cannot have emerged before the emergence of money, which can only have taken place after the emergence of several trades, and it has been claimed that midwifery, or perhaps gardening or teaching, are really the world's oldest professions. However, prostitution in exchange for goods or services may have been common for many thousands of years and may date to early man. Additionally, prostitution has been noted in Bonobo chimpanzee behavior based around access to food and gifts of food, and in penguins in regard to access for suitable stones for nest building. Until the age of industrialization the world was basically agrarian, so goods and services were most often obtained by barter.”

I think the claim makes sense, at least for the case of humans. If the concept of prostitution to be the oldest profession is based on the assumption that it may had been used for exchange of goods, the exchange (or trade) of these commodities were taking place. In addition, commodities were considered to be kind of important, as people were virtually agreeing to do anything for this. So, the concept of ‘commodities trading’ has to be born before the so called ‘the world's oldest profession’.

Long time no C (mostly perl and java)

For a long time the only one speaking on this blog was probably Silence. Yes silence speaks... learnt that recently from some reliable source.

Anyways, since the last time I posted (that would be long long ago, when there was a king...) , things have changed drastically. I got employed and relocated to hyderabad. Its almost two months now and I have sort of settled. Till now I am satisfied with the work I do and the work I don't do here.

So today my friend Mr. SS (also a contributor to this blog) sent me this. If you have seen the Matrix trilogy and your thoughts did not wander on similar lines, you must now consider watching only Karan Johar + Shahrukh "cult" movies, because you were easy meat (rather batteries) for the machines. Yes you are mere power resources.
I can go on and on on this topic, but I choose not to, reason being going on and on sounds like the job of Amaron batteries, and it would be amusingly ironical to do that after calling most of you easy batteries.

Moving on... the title of this post should give an idea about the work I do here. Although it may sound as a plain old coding job, but we have to have some knowledge about the financial world that our codes deal with and hence we are not totally like the "techies".

The first month we joined here was spent in training and apart from perl and java and some other technical stuff, we enjoyed foozeball to the extent of breaking down one of the two tables and one of my two thumbs... Now our cricket team has got active and I am really excited about that. Heard there is an intra company match this weekend and some corporate tournament starts the weekend after that.

Well I'll try to keep posting here and hope other contributors too start doing so more frequently.

Friday evening stock market report

As I mentioned, I have joined an investment bank. So, my posts have got to be influenced by what I do (or at least am trying to do). This post is the first in what would probably be a long series of posts related to things I do. But I would definitely try to keep it on the lighter side rather than giving you something, you are not expected to comprehend. Below was a Friday evening stock market report. (Courtesy: one of my team members)

Stock market report

Today's Stock Market Report:

Helium was up, feathers were down.

Paper was stationary.

Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading.

Knives were up sharply.

Cows steered into a bull market.

Pencils lost a few points.

Hiking equipment was trailing.

Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline.

Weights were up in heavy trading.

Light switches were off.

Mining equipment hit rock bottom.

Diapers remained unchanged.

Shipping lines stayed at an even keel.

The market for raisins dried up.

Coca Cola fizzled.

Caterpillar stock inched up a bit.

Sun peaked at midday.

Balloon prices were inflated.

Scott Tissue touched a new bottom.

And batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market.

I am back, but for how long

I have this amazing ability of persuading myself to avoid doing something which I would love to do. This sometimes happens due to consideration for others. However, at the centre of the ultimate intention is my own self. This ability which has grown into a habit has been with me for a long time now. It has grown and expanded encompassing newer and newer things and widening its scope. Sometimes, I feel like getting rid of it but after some reconciliation I realize that on the balance, I believe it to be an asset; one that has helped me a lot.

Blogging does not come under the above category; but is definitely becoming a strong contender given my performance and consistency. I posted a long time back. Then one of my colleagues Mr. SS was good enough to come up with something or else the blog would have become unheard of.

A lot has happened meanwhile. I have officially started my career with an investment bank. Definitely, not a bad to place start, some would like to say for anyone but I have my reservations about that. I have moved to Mumbai, in many ways my home town. I am back with my family; but the family I had been a part of for the last 4 years have been disintegrated, but only physically (I hope).

But even during this gap, I never stopped thinking of blogging. I was sure that one day I would return to it. I have even went as far as to note down many points on which I definitely would like to blog, ones which I came across and did not want to miss the opportunity to speak about. So, you can expect my posts to cover these points. But it will all depend on the frequency with which I blog. I cannot promise but will try to be as regular as possible.

Something The Lord Made

I watched the movie "Something the Lord Made" yesterday on HBO. It was a wonderful movie. The whole process of researching, struggling and then finally getting success is perhaps the only reason why we all are living.

In brief the story revolved around a black man, Vivien T. Thomas and a white surgeon, Alfred Blalock. The story depicts their coming together, starting to research on dogs for the blue baby cure for their hearts. The operation is a bit too complex for me to understand and explain but I can imagine that it saved millions of lives. Vivien had to leave college because of financial crunches and starts working as an assistant for Alfred. The movie also deals with the racial discrimination issues. In spite of doing top class work Vivien is not given proper treatment and pay. But Alfred helps him in this. Ultimately they are together able to find a way to do the surgery. It was a joint effort where without any one it could not have been possible. Everyone is against the operation. The church says that this operation is trying to do something against god's will. Alfred's friends tell him that he is risking his reputation and he should not do that.

On the day of the surgery, Alfred, 2 other surgeons and an always supportive doctor Helen Taussig are in the operation theater. Alfred realizes that he cannot do the operation without Vivian's guidance and makes an emergency call for him. Vivian can't operate since he does not have a college degree. The operation is a huge success and is claimed as a break through in medical science. Dr Alfred and all other doctors even remotely connected with this operation are considered godly. However because of racial discrimination no credit was given to Vivian. Vivian confronts Alfred regarding this and then leaves the lab. Alfred tries to stop him but it is shown that he has too become a little arrogant now. Vivian tries to go to college again but he is 35 years old and it does not seem worth it. He returns back to Alfred's lab and Alfred mocks him a little and at that point Vivian says "It is not about you doctor, its about the work. I like the work."

Many years later, after Vietnam and many other important events happen in US, in 1964 Alfred is on a wheelchair and Vivian is escorting him around John Hopkins and a room where many famous people have their portraits. At this point Alfred admits his mistake and tells Vivian that "Vivian, they say in order to live a full life you need to have regrets. I have many regrets Vivian, I have many regrets" while looking at his portrait. After some time Alfred dies. In 1976 Vivian was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Laws by the John Hopkins University.

This story is indeed provoking. It gives you both a feeling of happiness over the triumph of science and the failure of human society. A society where people are not even given credit for their work because of social biases and discrimination and I don't think I am wrong in saying that these biases still exist. People even today do not get what the deserve and here lies the failure of our society.

A tale of two cities

This would probably be my last post from Delhi as I would be moving to Mumbai this week. Before coming to Delhi, 4 years back, I had spent most of my life at Mumbai. So, throughout the 4 years one question that people kept asking me was to do a comparison of the two cities and maybe give them my choice amongst the two. The answer kept on varying with time spent in Delhi but the conclusion has remained the same till now.

I will enlist the points I had been stressing in my answers.

The public transportation system in Mumbai is better (at least the part I had been in contact). You have local trains in Mumbai plying at the frequency of 3 minutes. I did not had the opportunity to take the benefits of the new Delhi Metro, so I cannot comment much; but I feel that its utility is being overestimated and making the decision (of who is better) solely on the basis of it is rather presumptuous.

Also, though the crime rate may be comparable in both cities or maybe higher in Mumbai, yet the crime in Mumbai is of the “larger” kind. So, there are more murders in Mumbai but less of pick pocketing etc. (the part which generally affects the common man, like me). The fact that Delhi is more unsafe for women is pretty widely known.

Delhi, or in general the north of India, has a lot of variety when it comes to foodstuffs of practically all kinds.

Mumbai has the added advantage that my immediate family has chosen it for their stay. But it is not that Delhi does not have anything on that front. Most of my relatives are in Delhi or in the NCR region.

So, I have been concluding ever since, that my choice would be Mumbai. However, after having lived in Delhi for some time, the gap between the cities has lessened (in my heart). I learned and developed so many things here. I developed my habit of reading; got acquainted with the better of my friends; did my engineering; got closer to my relatives (whom before I could meet only once a year). Finally, the city witnessed my personal growth and it had a major role to play in it.

Disclaimer: You may not find much relation between the picture and the text that follows.

P.S: One other not-so-related stuff. The city of Calcutta or Kolkata has gone from riches to rags. The communists, who in theory are the well wishers of the labour class, have (in their 30+ years rule) exploited this very class in West Bengal. However, this is still not apparent to most of them. They have become poorer due to the government policies but are made to believe that only the communist government is their last hope. To me, the irony is unbelievable. Bengal, which was the most happening place in the British time, has become a place where almost nobody likes to start a new venture.

Recently, we were in the middle of our campus placements. So, we had people from outside the country visiting. There was one chap, who was visiting India for the first time. On his trip, he went to Kolkata and then came to our campus in Delhi. He wanted to setup his base in India. In the middle of his presentation, he asked the audience regarding the place they would like to work at within India. He gave us options and asked us to raise our hands if we would like to work at that place. When the option of Kolkata was given, no one seemed to raise their hand. At this, he said that even he would not like to set his base there. At this, I pitied the state of the city. Even a stranger, on his first visit to the country, decides on not dealing with the city in the future.

'Independence'

I wrote about the Google spreadsheet invitation becoming easy in my last post. Some people seemed interested. Well at least I am interested in a lot of these new innovations in technology. Mr. SA, one of those interested, asked me about my comments about the innovation. Well, the concept is worthwhile and for a lot of people it actually makes sense. Simultaneous editing and viewing of spreadsheets, and for that matter, other applications like the word program can go a long way. I would like to say that it would be helpful to me, but I am not that much sure, as the field I am going into involves a lot of secrecy in its work. So, though we would be working with spreadsheets for the entire time, it is quite probable that people in the field would not be enthusiastic about making content available on the web, inspite of the privacy being promised. As of now, the features are also only basic but good enough for bloggers to get excited.

Sometime back (precisely 4 years, when I just started my undergraduate studies), I started listening about the concept of independence and freedom. This was the first time I was out of my home (and into the world, so to say). At that time, I could not relate to it. But now I can and am enjoying it a bit. I was not sure why anybody would like to have it, but now I feel that how can anybody live without it. It is not to say that complete freedom is the way to go; but upto a certain level it is necessary for the very existence. A recent example was when I along with my friends had to go on a hunger strike. None of us asked about the same but after committing, the information was sent via our cellphones.

I like reading autobiographies, and not biographies. The reason being that biography again is like hearing about someone from someone else, which is something we are accustomed to. An autobiography, on the other hand, lets me hear from the person himself. The views expressed may not be 100% authentic, but whatever we can get is worth the reading.

Currently, I am in the middle of the autobiography of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It is a good embodiment of a life, which anyone interested in the Indian freedom struggle can have a look. It covers, in detail, the period of his life upto 1934, when he was in jail (or gaol) as he like calling it. He wrote the autobiography in jail and so not much is present of after 1934. Only a chapter has been added in 1940 filling in some gap. However, I would have liked more details of the period closer to independence as well as the time he was the Prime Minister of India.

It is a good read; not only because of the fact that Nehruji was good at English, but also because it enabled me to see the other side of the picture, and maybe the person. This generation are filled with those who believe that most of the freedom fighters could have done a lot better. They took a lot of time in “gaining” independence for the country. Some may even believe that it was not even gained and was just a result of the weakening of the British after the second world war. This generation believes in the methods of Bhagat Singh and party to be used as a means to meet their ends.

Reading the autobiography made me think if all of the above was actually true. Whether we were justified in taking the sacrifices as things which were unnecessary and useless? Nehruji has put Bhagat Singh and others in the category of terrorists, which is certainly not something which one would do now; but at that time may be the concept of terrorism was quite different. One thing I have started admiring about Nehruji (important to note, that before the book, all the things I had heard about him or rather believed about him, were not something to be admired) was his persistent demand for Independence (and nothing else). While many others, including Mahatma Gandhi, gave way to things at the cost of Independence, but Nehruji did not.

May be I have started relating to him due to this ‘Independence’.

Start contributing

Every time I open this site for a new post, I expect (at least subconsciously) that the other “contributors” might have done something so that they can be called with that name in the future. Nevertheless, I get delighted (surprisingly) when I see that no such thing has happened. Maybe I feel happy about the fact that I am the only one adding to the value of Myself SpeakingÔ (had not used the trademark for a long time now). I do not know why, I keep postponing the idea of writing posts, when the entire day, I think about how to frame the events occurring into words and sentences for the next post. The things, which actually manage to reach the posts, are only a tiny part of those intended.

(I think I have not told you that, every post, I first write it into some word processing application and then transfer it here. This would explain the reason of my posts being free of grammatical and spelling errors).

Everybody has a style of writing. You can many a times guess the author (if given some manageable number of alternatives), just by reading his work. This phenomenon includes the writers of blogs as well. Like, here at Myself SpeakingÔ, though others contribute so less, yet if you see the title of a post with some full stops at the end (i.e. blah blah ….), you know that Mr. AR would have been responsible for those; or if you see more than one exclamation marks sticking together, then Mr. KS has got to be held guilty.

I had talked about various social networking groups before and how they help you to be in contact. Well, the phenomenon is far from dying. Not only is the number of such group increasing, but also the time spent by people on these is phenomenal. I am myself present on Orkut. This particular service has changed some verbs and has created a few new ones. So, if someone asks you whether you have been orkutted, (my word processing application does not recognize it, as of now) do not look puzzled. ‘Getting scraped’ is no longer derogatory and infact people have started measuring the extent to which a person is extrovert, by the number of times he has been scraped. In addition, deleting a scrap is considered as a sin in the religion, Orkutism.

I sometimes feel, I can start a completely new blog on Orkut; and I constantly try to control the temptation. So, get ready for some more of my comments and suggestions and experiences with this new found tool of the world.

Is everybody leaving blogger.com? For, whatever blog I visit at blogger.com, I find the top post giving the address of the newly found home of the writer. May be they have moved on, but I do not have any such plans for the near future. Finally, I would be joining the sole company who has offered me a job in the first week of July. I have heard that will provide us with internet connection; but there would be no accessibility to personal mails. Also, sites like blogger.com and (yes, you guessed it) Orkut would b out of bounds. How will I survive, I am a little skeptical.

Yes, it will rain; No, it won't

After living in Mumbai for about 15 years, one thing I learned was that the weather was far from being predictable, especially the monsoons. You carry your umbrellas the entire day only to bring it drier home. And the day you forget it or consciously avoid taking it (looking at the bright sunshine in the morning), you are up for a couple of showers.

But the Meteorological departments and other institutions dealing with climatology across the world are doing their best to prove me wrong. How much they have succeeded is debatable but at least the majority believes that this is something to be discussed about. The hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other natural calamities that we hear frequently and the accompanying large damages of life and property keep adding fuel to the above talk.

I do not know what educational qualification is required to get an entry into the Indian Meteorological department; but rumours say that the money (from the entry level itself) is good. Some say that it is comparable to the highest salaries paid in India. One thing I am sure is that a lot of money is going into the department for the equipments required have got to cost a fortune as well as the satellites being flown require advanced technology and huge amounts of money.

But is this spending – in the name of the human quest to know and somehow control nature – justified. I have come across cases where either these people were not able to predict some major happening, climatically speaking or had gone terribly wrong in their predictions. This winter the temperature in Delhi reached 0.2°C when it usually goes to a minimum of 4°C during that time of the year. As usual, there were no indications before hand. There was also news that BBC had given a better prediction about the climate of Delhi than those given in India.

A more recent example – and one which has a lot more effect – was the case of predictions for this year’s monsoon. The predictions were that it would be below normal. This has ruffled some feathers as India – which is a more agriculturally oriented country – had been trying to revive the agricultural industry and such a happening would have spelt doom for the same. Also, the stock markets became a little jittery at the news.

However, the result is again similar. Not only has the monsoon reached the country before schedule, the meteorological department itself has now predicted a normal monsoon for the country. I know that predicting the climate is easier said than done, but what I ask for is some positive progress.

You have to cross the Threshold

You had always been behaving and acting in a certain way. Then, slowly or sometimes abruptly, you change the method followed and do things in a different way or maybe add and delete items from the things you do. This happened only because, either your threshold changed or the threshold of the thing changed. In short a relative or mutual change in the threshold.

For every thing there is a threshold and may be even a threshold value, if you wish. You had been traveling by train forever and that too in the second class. Suddenly, you feel that in future, if you travel by train that would only be in the air conditioned coaches. After some time, the train journey ceases to be an experience you might wish to experience. You are all for air travel even if that is a little too much for your pocket. That is the time to realize that a threshold has been crossed (or achieved!).

There might be a number of reasons for the same. Like in the previous example, affordability may be an important parameter. The cost of air travel may have decreased or your income might have increased so that it was strong enough to support your new mode of travel. Various other reasons can be searched for, but the thing to notice is that there was a threshold which had to be reached.

You come across these, almost daily. You come across a stranger; talk to him/her for a while; find him to be a nice guy/gal; decide on the next meeting; have a few meetings. The virtual threshold of making him a friend could be crossed at any stage of the above interactions or it may happen that it is never reached at all. Also, you would see that there are a number of points/milestones to be reached and with each one of them, there is a threshold value attached.

Now, the value depends on both the people interacting and the situation or the behaviour involved. Thus, the value varies with the person involved and as such different individuals in a similar situation might have the milestones at different levels in the journey. The value interprets and translates into different variables like time taken, money spent, quantity of work required to be done etc. So, different persons may take different amount of time to become friends with a particular person, or may have to employ distinct amount of labour in similar work profiles.

This threshold value is more dynamic than it seems. So, it is possible that it increases or decreases according to the change in the parameters on which the threshold (and thereby its value) is based. So, when you move out of the comforts of your house for the first time, the value hill is steep; but once the initial phase is over, it kind of becomes a plain and for many, the other way (i.e. moving from the independence in the outside world to the confinements of the home) becomes a mountain.

Why do people blog?

For quite a while, I thought that blogs were a means of making people read your views and ideas or anything that you find interesting and suited for others to read. This would give you the reason why I included the tracker (at the end of the page) which would tell me how many people came to visit my site, the article which was most read etc. I wanted to make the blog famous and so tried to convince others to link to it and employed other ways which would satiate my motive.

Some posts later, I have realized that, more than anything, blogging acts as a means for the blogger to know what (s)he feels, what (s)he thinks and what are his/her opinions about various issues, or products or people, pretty much about anything. It brings his/her subconscious thoughts to the forefront and actually allows oneself to analyze them further and build opinions based on them. The topics on which one writes are something, about which one has thoughts in his/her mind and wants to pen them down. However, the incentive of the audience is always there, but what I want to stress is that, lack of a large audience would not spell doom.

This sort of thing is not new, for we had people writing their diaries (blogs are sometimes also referred to as online diaries) from ancient times. But the aspects which have changed are quite phenomenal. Previously, though the diary writing was not that of a secret affair, a conscious effort was made by the writers to restrict the contents to themselves. These days, one has become more open and wants – or atleast does not mind – others reading his mind in the form of the thoughts he wants to share.

Also, the convenience of doing all these things has attracted people towards it. Unlike before, when it was almost impossible to make available your daily accounts for others, blogs have overcome this aspect. You no longer need to bind together your ideas into a book to be published and made available, you can just post them at your convenience – in terms of size, time etc. - and others can ravish them.

What I increasingly find myself doing is that any situation I experience, in my mind I try to make it into a post for my blog, with the title and everything. Sometime I feel that by posting it, I would be able to refer to it in the future and may be learn, and thereby gain from it. But, I realize that the actual aim of writing is to make a permanent impression about it in the mind, so that you never have to refer to it, and it gets imbibed.

On the battlefield!!!

In the previous post Mr. AA told that five of us went on a 24 hr long hunger strike supporting the medical students who were already there for around 90 hrs.

Here are some snaps of our effort.








We know more than anyone else that this effort of ours was too small in comparison with what the medical students had been doing; but then it was far better than not giving a damn about it (what the majority of society has decided to about yet another important issue).

In front of us at least 5-6 people who were on strike from the beginning had fainted. We are too 'weak' to even get there! Anyway the media was present there throughout and got excited whenever a new group of supporters came in for the medical students. There were some celebrities that came in for encouraging the brave students. Good speeches, good thoughts, but finally all of them went back in their AC cars, satisfied with the free media attention they got!

I am not sure if a hunger strike is the right way of showing protest, but what else could one do if not this to show denial of what could be the stupidest decision of the cabinet. (Or is ot about to get more stupid?). One way could be to present an alternative plan for the cause that the government is superficially promising to fulfill, but even if some people capable of doing that actually get through it, I am not sure anyone would listen.

So what should we do? Wait for things to get so bad that only a Vendetta could sort them out using the only way which ascertains a solution!

Mine was too meagre

The college days are here to end and the realization is slowly, but surely growing on me. After a lot of searching and efforts, I have managed to create some DVDs with content which I would like to have after IIT and with which I would be prepared to face the world outside IIT without LAN. I just cannot imagine the state in which you wish to watch a movie, or listen to a song or watch the latest episode of an American daily and not have access to it.

However, it turned out that it was a long way to go before we can say good bye to the college. My friend gave me a link to a site listing different phobias. However, I could not find the name for the phobia of sitting on a hunger strike. Mine was not that of a phobia but more of hitch about doing something you have not done ever before. Yes, I went for a hunger strike. But only for 24 hours. If you think that is not big enough, try one for yourself. Of course you can drink plain water but nothing else. However, it was nothing when I and my 4 other friends looked around and found people who had not eaten for some 100 or so hours.

I would like to mention the names of my fellow strikers who took the brave initiative, which the entire engineering community had refrained from. They were Mr. NJ, Mr. KS (also a contributor to this blog), Mr. SP and Mr. AB. We were on a relay strike for 24 hours at AIIMS along with people from the medical community. When we started the count said that there were 87 people on strike and 43 had already collapsed. 24 hours later there were the numbers were 34 and 95.

Their effort was more than commendable. I just cannot imagine surviving 100 hours without food. And the enthusiasm was tremendous. The support came from everywhere. Students, welfare associations, faculty etc. everyone was there. The media was busy giving in depth and regular updates back to their studios. While I knew that by so and so time my strike would be over and so had something to look forward to, others did not and yet they continued.

But one thing I realized was that people like me who try to achieve things by protesting online through blogs, communities, petitions etc. are merely bluffing. Nothing much is achieved by forwarding mails, posting on online groups or communities, signing petitions. It is just a method to convince oneself that he has done something for the cause when in reality he has done nothing more than crap. Little is achieved even after taking to the streets and NOTHING is achieved by the former method, if you call it a method at all.

Lastly, after the strike, I happened to meet a lady doctor and when she came to know that I was from IIT, she enquired (I assume sarcastically) if the IIT was affected at all by reservations. I said yes and tried to defend how the engineering community especially the pan IITians are doing their bit, something for which even I was not completely convinced. However, at least I could tell her that IITians have joined and 5 IITians went on a hunger strike with the medicos. She looked somewhat satisfied but I am not.

A Peaceful Protest

It has been long since I wrote. The reason was mainly because my account (through which I could access the web) has been frozen. The reason being that some anti-social element got hold of my password, and thereby my account, and downloaded 5 GB of God knows what. As a result, I became instant villain of my department and was held responsible for all that was happening wrong in the department. From bandwidth usage to chair robbery, I was the one to be contacted.

After getting a lot of undeserved bashing and with some efforts, I was able to track the user ids as well as the network IPs of the culprits. But that was not enough as to find the computer with a particular IP in the entire institute campus would surely have taken a lot of time and sweat. So, after a few searches I gave up and updated our HOD about the status. He was kind enough to atleast give partial access to my account so that I could continue with my semester and none of my courses or projects are affected.

Now for some latest updates. I along with many of my fellow students took to the streets yesterday with a peaceful protest march from IIT Delhi to AIIMS. Since the march was peaceful, no slogans were allowed on the streets. We were given security or more so the police accompanied us so that nothing goes out of hand. Most of the students were enthusiastic. One of the reasons was the fact that it would be their chance to come into the limelight, for the media coverage was spell bounding.

The media was not allowed inside our campus and so they were waiting at the campus gates to have a chat with the protesters as well as catch them on camera. My colleagues were more than happy to contribute and say whatever they can. We had made posters so that the onlookers would atleast know the purpose of the protest. I do not have a picture of any poster to show you as of now, but I would definitely try to arrange for one by my next post. The posters read
1. Deserve, Not Reserve
2. Is this how you stop Brain Drain?
3. Disowned by my Own Country
But the best poster was one where we had used mathematical equations, true to our name as the top technological instituion of the country. Ofcourse nobody, including the media, could understand that but the creators of the poster where more than happy to explain the complex equation.

I have not told you yet what we were protesting against. Well you might hav guessd it by the slogans on the posters. If not, we have a long way to go before we take poster making as our profession. Ending the suspense, the protests were against the new set of Resevations which the Government of India is trying to introduce. And also to show our solidarity towards the medical community who have been protesting for about a month now. Some members of the medical community are on a hunger strike at AIIMS in retaliation of their members being manhandled by the police in Mumbai and Bangalore. Some guys from us are also planning to join the hunger strike but no commitments yet.

Lets have a treat

Lately I have been going to so many treats and lunches and dinners that I am beginning to wonder if life would remain this way forever. In my last post, I mentioned about how I had to attend (poor me) two farewells on the same day. Previous to that there had been a whole gamut of job treats that I went to (including mine). Of these, mine had been so far the best. People said that it was because of the food and everything but I know the real reason. What I can say is that how the treat is depends on who the treat is given by.

But this unbeaten record (which I also thought was unbeatable) was finally beaten last night. It was the treat of Mr. SK or 'panji' as we call him (I mentioned the nickname because it took a while before I could recall his real name). Half my institute was there and so it also had the distinction of the most number of people in a treat (of the ones of which I was a part). I knew that the host was a famous personality but so famous was some information.

The treat was also different in some other aspects. Not all the people have had the privilege of being seen by me before. The ones who I had some acquaintance with were meager. Also it was the first treat with people from both sexes present and I am not talking about ones not invited by the host. Not that it matters to me, but I thought you might consider it has a prerequisite for the best party, if not for all parties.

Initially, all the things I mentioned made me rather uncomfortable. On my way to the place of the party, I was thinking why was I even going to a party with a few strangers. When I reached the venue, this feeling became strong when I watched a bunch of humans from the other sex. The feeling reached its climax when people came flocking in packed cars.

But as the end of most of the movies, the climax was followed by a happy ending (or should I be philosophical, and say a happy beginning). As the music started and people started dancing, the magic wand had been waved. There was dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks. Though they were some starters (in the beginning) and food (at the end), I don't think many people cared. Atleast I did not, which was kind of a surprise.

People say that I kept dancing for 4 hours, which is ironical as I have never learned dancing and cannot even claim to know even a single dance step. But maybe everyone was on the same platform (atleast literally they were). Also, people kept teasing me that I was drunk and the culprit was none of the traditional ones but Coke.

Now that’s what I call Farewell

Friday was a busy day. My overall attendance in my courses allowed me to skip the classes in the morning. As a result I took the liberty of starting my day rather late. The evening and night was promising as there were 2 events planned. First there was the Farewell from our department and then there was the Farewell from the hostel (called ‘Kheech’ which means ‘pull’ as in ‘leg pulling’).

All those concerned were fairly excited about both the events. The first one was to include dinner and cake while the second one was to have snacks and drinks. But after the events, I realized that they were just add-ons.

The Department Farewell provided an opportunity for our entire class to unite, probably the last one. Though it started a little late, as usual, sometime in between I felt that it should never end. Almost all the department students from the 2002 batch were present as well as many from the 2003 batch (the ones who organized) and other juniors. The initial delay was mainly due to people not making the effort to reach in time and to some extent the organizers wanting a little more time. I and my group flocked the back row of the room in which the farewell was being held, maintaining the tradition of being the backbenchers.

The students were not that willing to part from their own groups initially and so when they saw that there was tome until the event began, started their usual conversations and what ever they do in their groups. I felt that the entire motive is being lost for this is nothing new and we do not need a special event for this. The organizers may have realized that the crowd may be getting a little restless and so the program started with one of our batchmates singing a song. The entire room went silent and flashes from all kinds of cameras were seen.

However, after that the stage was open for anyone who wished to show his/her talents. Back, in our group we were planning to do our own thing with some songs. Though two guys were called on stage they rather passed the onus on the audience and rightly so. So some suggestion was required for a song, the whole batch can sing in chorus. I seized that opportunity and forwarded the song we had been planning to sing in our group, namely ‘Jhuma Chumma’.

The song was sung and half but only by half the class as the other half was busy laughing at the choice of the song as well as the lyrics. The song was followed by prize distribution which I give a damn to (I have not even heard of the events) and a small speech from one of the professors for which I cannot be more unconcerned.

Backstage the first yearites were busy preparing a skit and a dance performance. These brought about the energy in the party. Meanwhile, we were joined by two other professors who also gave their speeches. While the first one talked in a traditional fashion about ‘… this is also a time of introspection …’, the second one was telling us about what not be in 10 years from now, namely a professor. The latter was desperately looking for some words to say to us but he did manage to come up with ‘… The fun part is over and now there would be many problems you would have to face in your future life, first of them being Hair Loss … ’. The audience had their best laugh in a while as jokes and sarcasms kept poring in.

Finally, there were the titles given to each outgoing student. Most of them were more than appropriate and it was a nice way of telling what image the entire batch has of a person. This was followed by the cake cutting ceremony by one of the faculty (as there was a chance of a fight between the students). The cake satiated the hunger of people’s clothes more than anything else. This may be a way to remember the farewell and also the dress you wore. The dinner was also quite satisfying, even though made available after some half an hour.

Overall, it was out and out fun. I regretted not being part of the farewell last year as an organizer. One thing which I also saw was the students are so much terrified by the professors that, they get scared even by the thought of the professors being offended in any way. So, there was none of the Professor bashing as one could expect from such a farewell. The other farewell was also fun but may be in some other post.

What is your profile?

I talked about the creator of Orkut in the last post. Well, I did not venture to find if he had a profile on Orkut. One of my friends Mr CB (who I supposed must have read the post and as always went on to think that extra) took the pain and found his profile. Here is the profile of Orkut Buyukkokten. For the people who had wanted to know the person with the highest number of scraps, there is something to rejoice. At the time of writing of this post, the number had reached 356096.

However, keeping the name of the site the same as that of the person, may actually get confusing. Like in his first testimonial, somebody has written that “I love Orkut!”. Now which Orkut is he trying to mention – the person or the site. If it is the latter then I identify with his feelings. But if it is the former, than he would like to go alone. Some people have argued that this is a fake profile. Well on the face of it, there does not seem to be such a probability but there is always a possibility. Also, many people have asking him, via scraps, questions about Orkut – the site. I saw a scrap asking him who has the maximum number of friends on Orkut. Come on people give him a break (whoever it be, the real Orkut or someone in disguise). I am sure that you might be wondering that I have nothing to do and am whiling my time in such activities. But I assure you that it did not take much time.

But I am not sure why someone would like to make a fake profile. I see that it may be a source of entertainment for a while. But after sometime it would get boring. One profile I definitely believe to be fake, is that of Swami Ramdev. Just the look of the page tells you so.

I will leave you with another flick from Sholay.

TECHNOLOGY SHOLAY

Amitabh: Mausi ladka "Infy" (no offence meant) mein kaam karta hai...

Mausi: Hai raam...

Amitabh: Aajkal allocated bhi hai...

Mausi: To kya kabhi unallocated (i.e. bench pe) bhi

rahta hai????

Amitabh: Ab C rating waalon ka allocation itni asaani

se kahaan hota hai mausi...

Mausi: To kya C rating bhi aati hai uski????

Amitabh: PL se ladaai karne ke baad A ya uske upar ki

rating to nahin na milti hai mausi...

Mausi: To kya ladaaku bhi hai????

Amitabh: Ab onsite jaane ko na mile to ho jaati hai

kabhi-kabhi anban...

Mausi: To kya onsite bhi nahin gayaa aaj tak????

Amitabh: Ab civil engineers ka Visa itni jaldi kahaan

lagta hai mausi...

Mausi: To kya ladka civil engineer hai???? Engineering

kaun se college se kiya hai????

Amitabh: Bas uska pataa lagte hi hum aapko khabar kar

denge!!!!!

Amitabh: To kya main rishta pakka samjhun mausi??

Mausi: Bhale hi hamaari ladki call center waale se

shaadi kar le, par Infy waale se kabhi nahin

karegi.......

Sholay (Software Engineer Remix)

After some initial euphoria in the placement season, I have been made to come face to face with reality. Though God was kind enough to convert my first interview into an offer, what followed was nothing much to write home to. Some off campus opportunities came my way but I was not able to go ahead of the initial rounds. Recent example is that of ML. On the other hand performance at all the IIM were far below average. My relatives are starting to say that it has been long since they heard any of my new success. They say that they have become a little accustomed to listening these.

The tussle which goes on between Google and its competitors sometimes has its toll on the consumers. Take for example, Orkut. I know that the service has been named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. But for me it stands for Orkut Really Keeps Us in Touch. I have talked about it previously, but the “gains” are increasing day by day.

My settings on orkut say that all my scrap alerts and friend alerts should reach on my Yahoo account. Most of the time it does but sometimes instead of reaching the Inbox, it is found in the Bulk folder. I doubted if Yahoo intentionally does such a thing. I know that Yahoo is too big a company to get involved in such kinds of petty activities but you never know.

Also, recently I found this on an Orkut Help page.

“Some users have reported that they're not receiving messages in their Hotmail inboxes. If your friends are not getting their invitations and they use Hotmail, you may want to try sending it to an alternate email address.”

The Orkut people say that the work is in progress to fix this bug. But may be they are the ones who implanted the bug in the first place.

Enough of the speculations. Now this is for those who loves Sholay and remembers its each and every dialogue.

Gabbar sends Kaalia and two others to Ramgad to collect the loot-maar software he had ordered.

They reach Ramgad and start shouting: "Abe O thakur! Kahan hai woh loot-maar software? Last date to kab ka nikal gaya".

Thakur [with anger]: "Chillao mat! jaakar Gabbar se kah do ki Thakur Software walon ne paagal kutton ke liye software banana bund kar diya hai."

Kaalia: "Bahoot garmi dikha rahe ho thakur? Koi naye programmers hire kiye hain kya?"

Thakur: "Nazar uttha ke dekh, Kaalia, tere sar par powerbuilder chal raha hai."

Kaalia looks up and sees Viru (Dharmendra) working on a PC on one Water tank and

Jay (Amitabh) on another, using a laptop.

Kaalia Starts Laughing and says: "Ha ha... thakur ne freshers ko liya hai ye log Programming karenge? In ko to DOS commands bhi nahin aate."

Veeru shouts: "Chup-chaap chala ja kutte. Hum log consultants hain, Kuch bhi kar sakte hain."

Jay hits his keyboard, then says: "jaao kaalia, Gabbar se kahna ki uska server down ho gaya."

AT GABBAR'S DEN...

Gabbar: "Kitne bugs the?"
Kaalia: "Do sarkaar."

Gabbar: "Wo do! Aur tum teen. Phir bhi fix nahi kar sake? Kya soch key aaye ho? Gabbar bahoot khush hoga? Naya assignment dega ...aur increment bhi? Iski saza milegi... barobar milegi."

[Snatches an X terminal from Sambaa]. "Kitne sessions hain is machine mein?"

Sambaa: "Chhey sarkaar."

Gabbar: "Session chhey aur programmer teen. Bahoot naainsaafi hai." [logout - logout - logout]. "Haan ab theek hai... ab tera kya hoga" Kaalia?"

Kaalia: "Sarkaar, maine aapka code likha tha."

Gabbar: "To ab documentation kar!

plz suggest a title..........

Last few posts have been about fairly serious issues, thanks to our major contributor Mr. AA. But still I would not underestimate the sense of humour of any of our contributors. Mr. KS & Mr. AA are capable of being at their sarcastic best when it comes to tickling the funny bone.

Speaking of kind of senses of humour that different people possess, I recall my conversation with our batchmate Mr. RG about the following state of our batch. According to him 90% of our batch possesses a very much wierd sense of humour ( might just be that it is wierd for us because we fall into the rest 10% but I sincerely believe otherwise). After a bit of discussion we reached the conclusion that it is the chill janta of his hostel(Ara) and mine(Shiva) that actually get along very well together than as compared to the rest of the batchmates because of this reason only.

This "alliance"( I don't know why I am coming up with this poltu season vocab ) of our 2 hostels has taken a new turn with us getting together to play Cricket in the evenings. About that, we do manage to have a Shiva vs Ara match everytime we play.

I am also thinking of putting up the on field news(as a post) from the matches that we play( with or without Ara ) and on the performances of the players. For the introduction of each individual player, wait for the next post.....

.... Note: This post is a result of sheer boredom resulting from waiting for simulation results in the Lab.
So if u find it much ado about nothing........
......
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...... i'm "SORRY" courtesy F.r.i.e.n.d.s. Season 9 TOW Emma cries :D

How to adopt a baby from China

If you have a Google account, you can sign in before searching for anything and Google will keep track of what you are searching and somehow modify the results according to your history of searches. Also, your personalized Google homepage has a lot of options to select from. You can look at the day’s weather or look at all the headlines or maybe look for where a movie is being screened.

One interesting feature is the ‘How-to of the Day’. Google takes it from the WikiHow site. As the name suggests it is a wiki site and so anyone can edit it. So you can search from previous ‘How to’, request for a ‘How to’ and even start a new ‘How to’. However, to start a new ‘How to’, you need to fill in a whole lot of things so that your audience is satisfied with your description. The things you need to fill include:

1. Title
2. Summary (An overview of the task that pulls the reader in More Info)
3. Steps (The main section giving step by step instructions explaining how to do it)
4. Tips
5. Warnings

One interesting ‘How to’ was ‘How to adopt a baby from China’. Why did this ‘How to’ spring up in the first place. Adding to that it occupied the top slot in the list of Featured Articles. Is it that people have started viewing China as the manufacturing hub of people, apart from other things they are using which are ‘Made in China’? Or may be people realize that, since China has the largest population, it also offers the best choice. The page also shows the photograph of a Chinese child with the caption ‘Perhaps your newest family member’. I think if that child belongs to a family, and the family is not willing to let someone adopt the child, they should sue whoever included the photo.

Moving further, an article about the B.Tech project of my friends, Mr. NJ and Mr. SS came in the Delhi edition of the newspaper, Hindustan Times on Thursday. It was about a surveillance system they are developing. It was kind of an achievement which was to be followed by their interview on NDTV. We all waited switching between the many NDTV channels. However the interview was not aired on Thursday but is expected to air sometime on Friday or Saturday.

I read the article in the newspaper and was quite happy at the prospects of getting a treat. Mr. NJ had also mentioned my name to the journalists but somehow it did not appear in the article. He had mentioned about me being the source of his inspiration, and how it was because of my moral support that he was able to come to this point. The journalists took his honesty for modesty. Everyone here knew how my mentorship was behind all this, and so were lamenting. Also, it should be kind of embarrassing for the people of the hostel of Mr. NJ. These people had given the Best B.Tech project award to someone else last week. The candidates for the award were those who had voted for them in the hostel elections some days before.

Contact me

A lot of things are going on these days. Firstly there is the confusion regarding my future career path. The comments would show the varied opinions. Secondly, my final semester is going for completion – no need to mention the lack of effort required for that. Also, I have been trying along with one of my friends to prepare some images for the promotion and proliferation of Myself Speaking™. We are trying to persuade some well known personalities to be the brand ambassadors. The talks are in progress and in the near future you would definitely something to look forward to.

Regarding IIMs, one pleasant surprise was that I have also been selected for IIMI (IIM Indore). Initially the IIMI site was not ready to speak out but after some high stress torture using Date of Birth manipulations as the weapon, it had to confess. Though I do not plan to go to IIMI, given that I have two better offers, but it was psychological win. Now my score was 2/6. The only surprise was IIMC and the irony was that it consisted of my best performance among all IIMs.

Moving further, the only revolution which has come in the last say, 50 years is that of communication. We are moving towards an age where the distance between people has decreased tremendously, atleast technologically. There have been rapid advancement and almost daily we come across new technologies being innovated and adopted to bring it to everyone’s doorstep.

Everyone has experienced it. For example, during school time we were not that much exposed to internet etc. So, after school, I had no contact with my school friends. Many of them had moved, do not know where, either for studies or because their families had to relocate. Once in IIT, I had tried to search for them through the web but to no use.

Then an initiative was taken with the Names Database. It was an idea which was required and had great usage. It planned to bring users of the web together so that anybody on the net can find anyone else and contact him. However, it did not take off. The reasons I believe are the cumbersome tasks which a registered user has to go through before he is able to search for other people. A user had to provide some 24 distinct email ids. These email ids should be such that they do not belong to people who have already registered. Now, 24 is a big number. So, after some time, users lost interest.

However, the objectives have been achieved with the coming up of various social networking sites. So, recently I managed to catch up with almost all my friends using one such social networking site. They were surprised (I hope pleasantly) as was I. Not that I was able to chalk out many serious plans or perform concrete tasks with them but the fact that we were electronically in contact brought back a sense of association.

However, the number of social networking groups has increased to an unmanageable number. Every person cannot keep track of all of them. So, what is required is that one finds a group on which most of his friends are present and not go on registering for every run of the mill networking group.

Down to the dogs

The state of IIT Delhi hostels has gone from bad to pathetic these days. As if the prevalent mess “food” was not touching the seabed in terms of their quality, a new way to make it go even deeper has been introduced. Machines which would be making part of the main course (The main course is the only course served). And the products of these machines are definitely taking the popularity of the food to rock bottom levels. Meanwhile, the butlers are happy – though not very much visible – as it would mean less work.

But this is nothing if you read below. There is no provision for internet access at the hostels. The students have been barred from using proxies for fast internet access. The connection speed these days is so slow that before going for our food at the mess, we open a page on the net so that when we return, atleast half the page would have been loaded.

It all started when the people from the Computer Science department started noticing, that there has been much use by the students of the privilege of proxy. The usage had lead to deterioration of the speed of net access for everyone. So, the administrators felt why everyone (read faculty) should suffer. Let the culprits (read students) bear the burden. So, they barred anyone from using proxies.

The aftermath has been pretty disastrous. We have no way to check our mails. So, our mail accounts which never had more than 2 unread messages at a time has grown so long, that we have to visit pages after pages to see the list of unread messages. Many students like myself who are not fond of visiting laboratories, now have to succumb. We had avoided these visits, in our entire stay at IIT, even in difficult times of assignments. But the net access trick finally bowed us out.

But the laboratory scene is not quite romantic either. These laboratories, which once saw an outflow of students only at times of project presentations and assignment demonstration, have lately been filled. Well, ‘filled’ is rather understating. There is no room at all. The usual inmates of the laboratories are still present. But these days they are quite annoyed, for they have started experiencing competition and in a field they are not accustomed to face one.

For every computer, there are atleast two people waiting to pounce on it if given an opportunity (or sometimes waiting to create such an opportunity). Even with this in the background, the person using the computer is “busy” on stuff which is purely meant for leisure. So, he may be doing some “work” on Orkut. He would be looking at photos of his friend or of some”body” he would like to make his friend. He would be writing and reading messages, which if not read for another year, would not affect anyone’s life.