Four years of life in an engineering college with less than a 10% sex ratio, and with virtually no female population to dedicate roses to, what do poor souls like us do on Valentines day?
Clearly, no other option..
Feb 10th : Another normal day in engineering student life. The day for my GATE exam, one of those life-turning, career-deciding all-important situations in life. GATE (I can only guess it means graduate ability test examination or something better) is literally the gateway to higher studies (Masters) in India's premier colleges, like IISc or IITs.
So what does a core branch-loving electrical engineer student like myself, whose ambition in engineering life is to make use of his earned engineering skills to develop his country's electrical power sector do? 
Excuse me, but did anyone say "Prepare for GATE..." ? Take a look at that small book on the right, and you will know why not.
So I woke up on the 10th morning, deciding whether or not to write. It would be an adventure, the bolder part of me said. It'll be complete murder, the scaredy cat part insisted. Finally the part that won was fear of momma's scoldings..: "What are you doing when youre' supposed to be writing a career changing exam..Why did u not prepare.. 900 Rupees gone waste.. What has college done to you.. blah blah blah..". So, washed n dressed up, I got into our jeep with as much resentment as my fellow GATE-attempters Naren and AK. I recalled the previous night, when I had, inspite of my staunch decision to do nothing but nerd off for the exam, played Badminton till my bones started creaking at 11 pm. Then Computer Games (Dota, specifically) till around 3 am. Then went around asking anyone who was awake to wish me luck, cos that was the only thing I would have for the exam.
And then this strange confidence crept into my mind.. the confidence of somebody who has nothing to lose..4-1 negative marking scheme, 85 qs in 3 hours, i decided upon all gods that i was going to leave GATE to luck and attempt every single question on a guess-atleast basis.
The center was Guruvayurappan college- a very beautiful place, really
. I have put some of the pics here. It was worth coming here for a tour trip if not an exam. The scenery would provide enough timepass during the exam. Since we had nothing to do but burn an hour, we had breakfast in the canteen, then proceeded to our halls.
Three hours later : Satisfaction pours out all over me. The GATE paper looked like it was meant to be done unprepared. Any minute of preparation over it would have been a loss. I had attempted all except 2 questions in the paper, needless to say consisting of n number of guesses (n generally tends to infinity for some unexplained rule in engineering), ie 83/85 qs. The paper tested only concepts, which luckily the 'efficient' Electrical Dept had succeeded in drilling into us.
Hence that satisfaction of a guy who has gained something for nothing.
Mathematically put,
Efficiency = output/input = k/0 = infinity.
The rest of the day was celebration. going around the scenic place taking photos, finding new shortuts to get to the road and getting lost, taking photos with the largest on-campus statue in India (in Guruvayurappan college)- its that poor girl you see on the right reading a book (hopefully not Gate)in candlelight
. We reached back in time to catch the match (I was getting uncontrollably worried about it during the exam)- and as if in reply to our mood, India made wonders beating Australia by 5 wickets.
Lets hope luck still believes in second chances. Or else who cares, it was just another enjoyable day of college life...
My deepest apologies to those poor souls whose photos i have used here without permission...I am sure to get a GPL for this one!...
And the prize goes to....
Warning : Publicity content included
A long time ago in the ages of the Pentium 1s and 2s, the Deva and the Asura clans would fight their Counterstrike clan wars in order to decide the fate of the world. The Devas always had the upper hand, what with Indra and his speciality Vajrayudha-47 gun and Vishnu once in a while picking off headshots with his Sudarshana Scout Rifle. So things went fine for a while, and the gaming world was happy.
It was during this time that in the month of Tula (July) there was a Devasura clan war in Swarga. The Devas were all pumped up and rearing to use their secret Agni grenade tactics. But as soon as the first match started off, BAM BAM BAM, all headshots, and the 3 million Devas went dead on the floor. The Asuras had scored their first CS match victory in yugas!
The Devas were surprised. The second match started soon, and this time they decided to Flash Bang the enemy with Surya (The sun), but no longer had a second passed, than BANG BANG and 'Terrorists Win..', the Devas had lost again.
Needless to say, The Devas lost the Swarga clan war none to 20.
The Devas, as usual, ran to their mentor and star gamer Vishnu for his Sudarshan Scout Rifle. However Vishnu, who was enjoying a quiet moment with his consort on his Snake-bed, was in no mood for a game:
Devas: "Oh Vishnu, greatest of gamers, the Asuras have defeated us at the clan war at Swarga.. they were too fast for us to see.. none of our tactics went through, and we could'nt score even one kill..Even Shiva on his Bull-pup Nandi could do nothing..Please salvage our pride and use your weapon to help us.."
Vishnu: "Learn to fight for yourselves, you @#%^s. Why the Naraka (hell) do you think you lost the war?"
The Devas look puzzled
Vishnu: "The Asuras use pitiable 486 processors, yet they beat your latest P4 dual cores. They use memory sticks for memory while you people have all the RAM you want. Yet you lost. Why?
You people, in your greed for winning, were ready to use the pitiable OS provided to you by Kubera (God of wealth): Lindows. And blinded by your hunger for power you bought it time and time again, not caring for how slow it was or how many bugs it had. You stuck to your old ways of running to me for debugging or pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete. No more shall this happen. Its time you discovered a new way, a new OS."
Devas: "But oh Lord Vishnu what OS can be greater than Kuberasoft Lindows? And how do we get it? Even our software division manager Brihaspati has no clue.."
Vishnu: "There is one, created by the greatest software engineer of all: Linux. Learn it, install it, and you will see your counterstrike perform a million times faster than before. Then it will be killing spree for the counter terrorists (aka Devas).. "
Devas: "Linux? Duh.. We have no clue..What the hell (ahem.. excuse me).. what in the heavens is that ? How do we study about this oh lord.."
Vishnu: "Well theres an easy way, and a hard way. Hard way: Go to the mountain of Mandara, carry it and put it in the ocean of Paalazhi, Bring the snake Vasuki from the snake world, coil him around the mountain, churn the mountain and get your new Linux tutorial guide..."
(The Devas are puzzled and understandably baffled)
Devas: "Er.. and the easy way..?"
Vishnu: "Yes, the easy way.. I was coming to that. In Makar (March), there will be an event called FOSSMeet '08.. It'll be in the south of Bhaarat in a place called NIT. Go there, and you shall receive all the tutorials you need about Linux and Open source. Then only will you be freed of your sins. Its all about freedom and sharing, after all. And yes, there are good earthly girls to be seen too..."
Its that time of the year again.. See you all at FOSSMeet 2008!.. Please visit the link http://www.fossmeet.in/nitc
To know more about FOSS, see my previous blog on FOSS..
Okay.. I'm back into blogging after a looooooooong time, and since i'm desperate to write anything at all.. here goes.. and theres a disclaimer..
Disclaimer : This post is not meant to entertain.. no PJ is meant to entertain.. it is meant to irritate people..Hence, Read at your own risk..
PJ = Poor Joke : also called Chali in Malayalam lingo : A remark/sentence misleadingly called a joke that has such low humour content, practically no standard, and no point at all, so that it tends to irritate more people rather than it entertains.
By definition, PJs can be of any type, but the most common type of PJ is done using duplicate meanings in language. I find English language most suitable- its such a shitty language that every word has atleast 2 unrelated meanings to them. Hence an easy algorithm for a standard chali maker goes as follows :
1. The Chali-Maker (henceforth, called CM) hears a sentence made in any language. eg : "The person reading this has absolutely no shit to do"
2. He scans his brain for any other alternate meanings to every word in the sentence. eg : Shit : has a real meaning that i'd rather not elaborate.
3. Find this word's opposite or any other related word, and make a sentence using this(any arbit shit (no pun) will do). eg : CM : "I bet you he has some peeing to do, though"
Rolling on the floor laughing, arent we...
I know how you must feel now.. that was a standard (i mean, no standard) no-class PJ, the type that you'd want to kill people for. But believe me, PJing is a mental exercise in itself : a lot of lateral thinking involved. And for the CM, its such a satisfying feeling (btw if you have'nt figured out yet, i am one of 'them' u know)
Another phenomena can be observed when more than one CMs get together : PJ bouncing : a process by which a PJ attracts another PJ (bounces) and this process can continue almost infinitely. for eg :
Normal Person : "I have no idea what this blog is about.. "
CM1 : "But you must be having an AirTel on what its about.. "
CM2 : "You can have your Water tell you about that too.."
CM3 : "Water is public property, it cant be his.."
CM4 : "Why cant it be private or protected property"(If you know your basic C++, you may not have missed that one)
CM5 : "Protected property? Protected by whom."
(By now, the normal person must be really pissed off, and makes an attempt to stop this onslaught on human common sense)
Normal Person : "Can you people stop saying PJs please"
CM6 : "But we never said 'PJs please' "
CM7 : "Wait, you just said it now.."
CM6 : "I never said 'it' either.." etc etc etc
Seriously, you should realize how much thinking goes into making a chali.. that why its so satisfying to the Chali-maker, despite the fact that Chali making is bad for (the CM's) health. Realize that and the you will start appreciating all those PJ bombs dropping around you..you can hear their BANG BANG sounds don't you.. well well i better get going..
A train journey provides a whole engineering case study in itself. Starting from the mechanics of train boarding to finding yourself a seat, the train journey provides ample opportunity for the mind to set into application several of its engineering principles. For example, how many times have we tried to figure out that old problem of where the train will stop, given its initial velocity and braking speed?
Seat finding provides a whole new mathematical model study in itself.. starting from probability and statistics, I try every single method possible to ensure I am standing right next to the seat which will be empty in another moments time.. ofcourse, nothing provides better results than relying on plain old luck!.. or better still, worth taking the risk is the seat that is guaranteed to be always empty, called the 'footboard'. It comes with an additional non-ticket charge, also called a 'fine'.
Ofcourse, it is impossible to solve some of the harder problems, like why the food always turns up at the wrong time. The key is to realising that you should feel hungry at the right time, and sleep the rest of the journey. Like they say, 'A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush', so eat when the opportunity comes.. The toilet is nearby for any emergency cases that may arise after all..
Then there are the indeterminate problems like "Is my body balanced enough to sleep, or will I end up sleeping on the guy next to me.."? What would really save money would be if one could figure out the exact position of the TTR on the train, which may be labelled as a standard mechanics problem of movement combined with a thrilling random human factor. Alternate techniques include Avoiding the ticket by learning to go to the toilet at the right time, or deciding to get off the train right. Or, better still, you could buy a ticket! But whatever be the case- be sure to keep your engineering mind open.. there are problems to solve out there!
I could'nt believe my ears when i heard this one.. that they were conducting a poll to select the New Seven Wonders Of the World! And that the Taj Mahal was one of the contenders!
Apparently there seems to be lots of problems behind this one.. it is facing some criticism also globally.. the official New7Wonders declaration is to be held in Lisbon on July 7th 2007. Siting Wikipedia- a Bernard Weber launched the project in September 1999. By November 24, 2005, 177 monuments were up for consideration. The wonders had to be man-made, completed before 2000, and in an "acceptable" state of preservation. On January 1, 2006, the list was narrowed down to 20 Finalists.
But though the Taj Mahal is one of the top 20, the Indian government has done nothing at all to promote the voting of the Taj.. what this means to India in terms of status is unthinkable.. Not to speak of the tourism potential this brings along with it.. Yet we see nothing of this around.. its going to be unbelievable if it comes down to the 2nd most populous country of the world not being able to influence the decision of a global online poll..
(Unbelievably, the Pyramid at Giza was also included in the election list for the New seven wonders, but after protests from the Egyptian media and government it was removed from the list and made an 'Honourary new wonder' candidate)
There may be some of us who believe this declaration is unimportant.. but I truly believe this is a chance India cannot afford to miss.. if it comes down to a global poll, we Indians should do what we can to make sure the Taj is up there.. this was my first impulse when i got this mail forward which i would have deleted like any other.. But on second thoughts.. maybe its worth it..
If you truly think this chance is worth it, people, cast your vote on
http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php?id=351
(Just register yourself and get the 7 votes and you can then vote)
Or you can sms TAJ to 4567 to vote.. or From BSNL phone call to 1255545
Current results of vote till a few days ago
1.The Acropolis———–> Greece
2.Mayan ruinsat chichen Itza———->Mexico
3.The colloseum———>France
4.Eiffel tower———>France
5.The Great Wall———>China
6.Machu Pichchu——–>Peru
7.Petra——->Jordan
8.Statue of Easter Island——–>Chile
9.State Of christ Redeemer——–>Brazil
10.Taj mahal——–>India
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