International VLSI Conference '08

its been a loong time since i've been blogging.
the vacation was unintentional and is a result of me being 'uber' busy for the past 3 weeks. Those times were hectic. and the sad part is theres more to come,the crucial part.

Theres this International Conference on VLSI design and Embedded Systems, www.vlsiconference.com. Its basically an industry level conference thats been held for the past 20 years in various parts of India, right from Bangalore to Delhi.
This year its being held at Hyderabad and we have the first ever students conference as a part of this biggie. The students track aims at exploring student avenues and exposing students to the latest in the world of Chip designing and the like.
Hell, its got all the big name organisations sponsoring the event. AMD, Intel, nVidia... name them and they are all here.

If that ain't incentive enough to attend, then there are profs from places like MIT, Boston, Princeton, New Jersey etc. delivering lectures and taking u on a ride down the subject lane.
To top it all, theres the certificate which would be invaluable to any engineering student.

Anyone who's reading this, avail this once in a lifetime opportunity. U've got no clue about the next conference. For all u care it cld be somewhere outside India and before u realise, poof goes ur chance to attend this :p

p.s. lunch included in the registration fees. Trust me, it will arouse the foodie in u ;)

to be contd..

Luck-in' my exams

Superstitions !
Yeah right. Arent they the stuff for the deeply spiritual and religious souls ?

Well thats exactly what i thought before i realised my exam life is mired in superstitions too.
I'm surprised, actually very surprised that i could turn out to be so superstitious when normally all i do is laugh away at them.

Its now turned into a regular habit, every exam morning, i try to wake up at the same time, finish my chores in the same order, eat the same breakfast and then to top it all, wear the same clothes to college :D
Sheeesh. What a loser !

Eh. No wayz. I realised that when i end up doing it all similarly, i end up doing well in the exam or atleast, i can rest easy after the exams. The marks arent very good though but given my preparations, its atleast a bonus that i pass :)

when the folks at my place started noticing my weirdness, i was kinda tongue tied to explain it all. Embarassing as hell !
Mom thinks i'm possessed by some weird demons from Planet Zorks ;)
Dad thinks its his excuse for a bout of laughter therapy. Atleast, i'm making someone's day :p

During my last exam i realised i'm not the only one. I do have company. Couple of my mates were in the same clothes, for all the exams. See its not weird anymore ;)

I keep reading a lot about sportmen being highly superstitious and all. At first glance, all it warrants is a flick of the paper, but then when i realise i'm no different, its suddenly kewl.

I know most people who see me everyday, must be wondering about my sudden fetish for a particular set of clothes but then they must have realised. But still i have to make do with my fair share of weird glances most times.

btw during the course of my last exam, which happens to be my best so far, i found out that using a particular pen with the same ink, might turn out to be really lucky for me ;) So its 'ink-saving' time now :D

Madness

Justice at last ?
McLaren's appeal against the F1 stewards decision to let BMW and Williams keep their points at the season ending Brazilian GP has been deemed 'inadmissible' by the puppets in London.

All the hype surrounding the appeal and the consequences that could have succeeded it, had McLaren been successful, would have done nothing more than prove that Max Mosley and his bunch of loons at the FIA are absolute suckers at best.
The fact that the FIA spent money and actually convened the hearing, only to later dismiss it as farce speaks volumes of the brains that reside in Mr.Mosley's cranium.

As a tifoso, i'm no doubt delighted that Kimi is still champion.
But as a F1 fan, i'm disgusted. Well anyone who follows the sport ought to be. McLaren may not have been altogether fair in their dealings this season, but they are a good team. I mean how many teams have constantly challenged the Scuderia's domination for such a prolonged period. Its another story that McLaren seem to get their a$$ whipped each season, either by a Prancing Horse or the FIA :P

Well McLaren have every right to feel betrayed. FIA have always shown a bias towards Ferrari (not that i'm complaining) but they ought to have atleast admitted that the two teams-BMW and Williams- werent complying with the rules. Had McLaren been the offender and Ferrari the questioner, then i'm sure we would have seen an altogether different ruling.
When the FIA pass the buck, it bodes ill for the sport. This sport is now as Ferrari-centric as it can ever get. Ferrari have dominated on track, but off it too. Thats pushing it a little too far.
I'm not of the opinion that Ferrari are the culprits in this, but its Max Mosley and his bunch of loons, including a certain Ecclestone. If Bernie had brains as his daughter has beauty, Formula 1 would have been devoid of all the crap we've had to endure this season.

I wish someone wld get all half wits outta the echelons of power in every sport. We have a prime example here in India, where m0r0ns who can hardly devote any time to the running of the country are trusted with the top offices for sports in the country.
The day we rid these half hearted lunatics outta the sporting world, we will witness the true spirit of the game.

Waiting for the day, Mosley and his breed are confined to the annals of history.

Yeah !!

Now, we are talking, Mr.Gates :P

Cine time

end sem time again.
this time i've vowed to walk into the exams absolutely unprepared and then face the paper.
screw them.

for the past 2 days, all i've been doing is watch movies. So with nothing to do at the moment, i decide to review them :)

Fast Times at Ridgemont High- Highly recommended for all teens :P
Private School- Watch it at ur own discretion
Last American Virgin- An OK movie worth watching once
The Girl Next door- I never get bored of this flick. Man, is Elisha Cuthbert hot!!!
What Women want- Hilarious is the word
Boat Trip- How the f*** did i miss this one for so long ???
Hotfuzz- Unfortunately, the copy i have doesnt have an ending :(( so now opinion
I think I love my wife- Gosh, never knew such super bad movies existed. yuck
Equilibrium- For super imaginary special effects
Little Manhatten- Cute flick! Watchable by all means
Love Actually- Mediocre but at times brilliant
Chain Kulli ki Main Kulli- Nice one !! Watch it once.
Thank You for Smoking- Watch this and trust me u'll never lose an argument ever again

A special day no doubt.

Kimi Raikkonen is WORLD CHAMPION!!! yipee !!!!
double celebrations today!!!!


Best birthday gift ever!!

Nirvana !

I have been driving for more than an year now. Tonight on my way back home, i realised how much driving meant to me.
Its my channel to vent out my frustrations, THE way to destress, relax and have fun.
It completely cuts me off from the world and i'm deriving this heavenly pleasure, whenever i floor the pedal.

I went down to eat street in the evening and discussed stuff about T-summit. Then i came back home and did nothing worthwhile. then this terrible headache overwhelmed me. Sleep would prolly have done me some good, but i decided to drive especially since no ones at home. I went down to NH-7 and drove till Medchal. It was so refreshing and kaput went my headache. Then on the way back, it was about 10, i discovered Rock. Never before did i think Rock was so diverse. All that i thought of rock was the head banging stuff(i knw i've been ignorant), but the RJ opened up my perception of the genre. The RJ had a very sexy voice i must admit. She also introduced me to Nirvana. I never listened to them before, but now Rape me is so good. I cant seem to get it off my mind.

I love the fact that i decided to drive rather than sleep. It opened Rock to me. Mebbe i'll now try listening to Iron Maiden on a rainy day. I may start liking that too.

and thus i attained Nirvana :p

Cruelty isnt confined to humans alone.
I realise that there are members of the animal community who sure do believe killing is a pleasure.

One fine morning i found three really cute kittens who could have hardly been a week old on my porch. They were beautiful. I so wanted to kiss them and stroke them. They remind u that alls not bad with this mad planet. The next thing i do is try to pick em up but they were prolly terrified by my appearance and they went into hiding. I went back inside and poured them my daily share of milk (mom has no idea :)). They did drink but only after they realised that i was far away. One of them was kind enough to let me handle her :) How she purred in my hands !
i had to rush to coll that morning, so decided to do something for them in the evening.

In the evening, the first thing i did after college was to rush up and check on them.
What i saw disgusted me. It was gross, gruesome, grotesque, horrible. Words fail me. One of the cuties was lying with one leg torn and an another a good 10 feet away from it. Its neck was severed. Cannibalistic sight.
Horror struck i tried finding the other two kittens and luckily they had found refuge beneath an old shelf rotting on my terrace. They were unscathed and alive. I tried reaching out to them but they wldn't venture out of the saftey of the cupboard.
I went back and tried cleaning up the mess myself. My mom would have freaked out and to compound it, shes allergic to cats. I was so unsuccessful. My mom caught me cleaning the remains of the kitten and she totally freaked out as expected. She made the servant maid clean up.
I tried persuading her to take the other two kittens into the house but she was having none of it. She did give me milk to give the poor guys and some fish too.
In the night just as i was about to hit the sack, i heard the kittens crying out. Horrified i rushed and found that there was this Big bad cat who was trying to reach the kittens and thats when i realised that he was the murderer. Bloody feline b1atch.

I managed to scare it away and fearing for the safety of the kittens, tried bringing them inside but they wldnt come out to me. So i did the next best thing. Gave them more milk and blocked them from coming out and ensured that the feline murderer cldnt reach them as well.

Next morning they were gone. No kittens, no Big Cat. i have no clue how they cld escape,but i sure do hope they are alive and well. I cant digest the fact that they might be dead too.
Please dont let them be !!

never thought i was capable of crying so much.

Animals are beautiful.
Please dont mistreat them. Please help animals in distress.

Canine love

Dogs are wonderful creatures. For that matter all animals are.
The innocence and their playful nature are something worth emulating. I had this dog for almost an year now. He was called Rocky. Every moment i looked at him, all i felt was the happiness that exists in this world. He was a fine buddy. Spent hours playing with him and stroking him. He was absolutely amazing.

Mom found him on the road abandoned. He was crying and was hardly a month old. I think its been an year exactly since my mom found him. He was brought home and at that moment i think i found one of my best buddies. He was amazing. He was the first guy who obeyed my commands. He was family and more. There were days when he used to cuddle up to me and all that occupied my mind at those times was the companionship and the fact that i had someone to lean onto. He was privy to my deepest secrets. If ever i had a heavy heart, all i had to do was take him out on a walk and share my grievances with him. I doubt if he understood me, but my heart was lighter. I still remember the stares from people who would certainly certify me retarded for speaking to a dog.
But nothing did matter. He was the best friend i never had.

He lived with me for 9 months and that time was probably the best i've ever had. Home was never dull with him around. He did wet my sheets often but that was a small price to pay for the company he bestowed upon me.

Finally mom gave him away after months of threatening to do so.
It feels very lonely without him. I realise why people crave for companionship. Its exactly a year since u were found.
I hope ur doing great.
Tears roll down my face as i recollect these memories.
Love ya buddy. Please come back

Of morons and more

its been almost 2 weeks since i've returned from Chennai.
and the last week was H.E.C.T.I.C

Deadlines galore.
cant believe i was such an ignoramus. there were umpteen assignments and then lab records to complete. Not to forget the lab exams and my mid sessionals that i had to contend with, and not to mention the fear of attendance.

i was sure i wldnt be detained but the fact that i may have to shell out 500 bucks, for no reason worthwhile, pinched me. i dint wanna go beg lecturers, so i did the best thing possible. Showed my Shaastra certificate to ppl and there, no one minded marking me present for one week. kewl. there one woe hopefully sorted out.

assignments were a different ball game altogether. I had a few lecturers threatening me with a zero and some promising to screw my lab marks. That caused a mad rush to find stuff to copy from and finally i manged to complete 2 out of the 5 assigned. wow. i have no clue whats gonna happen in the rest.
then i had my lab exam, thankfully of which one was postponed :)
the other was mediocre.

Then i had the Mini Project to submit, which was a total farce in more ways than one.
My mini project incharge is a dumb witted, ignorant, cockeyed, drunk piece of trash. She was completely oblivious to the fact that i spent the better part of 3 days trying to develop an OS. She thought my project was a complete rip off the college Linux install >:P
bollocks i say !
How completely moronic can one be ?? i think i'll forever be searching for that answer.
she made a complete mockery of my effort ! sob !
what a b1atch
Screw the ignoramus queen.

then i had this request to make a video for T-summit. It seems trivial right now but later, i'm sure gonna regret agreeing :p
and then the mid sessionals to battle with.
and my exam theory has gained further ground.

The lesser u study for an exam, the better u fare

lol.

What an overwhelming week.
This break is a welcome respite before i'm gonna have to start fighting with the end sems.

my attendance was 82% at the end :) lol

ReDboX is here !

its official now

my internet connection sucks and how.
uploading those pics took urs truly 2 hours and then the power went bonkers in between implying that i need to start again. thus i've decided to chuck my plans of uploading those pics. newayz i managed to savage 2 pics and posted those :)
i wish i had better upload speeds. i still long for those days when i had a 4mbps upload speed and a 128kbps download :p
those were the days when none cared about upload and talk of ADSL was light years away.

another reason that kept me away from posting the pics sooner, actually THE reason, was i started to work on my project.
Finally after spending 57 hours and about 38 minutes, i can now boast about creating my own linux distribution. yipee !!!
though the thing is minimal and provides basic command line editing only, its a start nonetheless and a platform for me to build my own distro.
Now the only problem , i have left is to get that thing to college. I'm now trying real hard to create a live CD but my ubuntu install is history :((

p.s. i christened my distro ReDboX ;)

Shaastra 07 at IIT-M is this week, and i'll have to leave soon. I've got to win something this time, its been too long since i've won anything major :(
Heres wishing me the best of luck :)

hopefully i can bear Chennai this time, last time was ..........

btw i used LFS to create the linux install :p

savor these !

i present :

DELL VOSTRO 1400

Specs:
Intel Core2duo T7300 2.0ghz,4mb cache, 800Mhz FSB
2 GB DDR2 667Mhz Dual channel DIMM
Nvidia 8400GS
120gb SATA 5400rpm hdd
8x DVD/CD burner
Intel 965PM chipset mobo
9 cell 85Whr battery
14.1" Wide screen
awesome styling & config :)

this thing is dwarfed by my dad's compaq. That thing is a hippopotamus and this ones an ant :p

at last !

at last shes here. my darling! the one i've fantasized upon for days. she landed yesterday night. now i get to fondle and caress her to my heart's content.

i love u babe.

Coming soon :Pics

No idea what to put here

these days i have a lotta things occupying my head and have always felt like writing something about them but my old nemesis (friend??), laziness seems to catch up with me very frequently. One sec theres this urge to put thoughts on screen and next i'm like 'This is so tedious' :p
I wanna try one last time if i can get myself to post again.


25th August 2007:
It was dreadful and to consider the fact that i was lazing and joking around at the very moment so many destinies were rewritten gives me the shudders. It was horrible. The true consequences are always felt later. When a friend passed the news, we dismissed it as a freak accident but once i got to watch TV, i realised the brutality and the horrific side of human nature. The very fact that someone thinks life is to be taken for granted is disgusting. I cant find words without stepping beyond the limits of decency to describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach(my vocalbulary fails me big time)
TV channels have decided that decency is the last thing to consider when u wanna outdo ur competition. Some of the pictures shown on TV made for such gruesome viewing and would have hardly qualified even as Adult only material. None even spelled out a warning about the pics being displayed. Horrific is too mild a word.
41 innocent citizens will never walk again. thats sending shivers through my spine
I've never felt so scared before. Never once did i feel so vulnerable. Those were places i had visited atleast once and even if i didnt have good memories of them, i atleast never despised them. Its blasphemous. I wish this would stop.
The fact that i was oblivious to the tragedy when it struck gives me the jeepers though i knw it aint my fault.That aint no consolation to me.

Its such a waste of human life that the utter disregard for it makes me wonder, if these people ever have hearts of their own. Would they kill their own brethren and let them die such torturous deaths ?
Maybe they would and thats the scary part. I suppose they never will have a conscience to answer to.

may all the souls rest in peace.
and to the injured, i fervently hope u have the strength to overcome this tragedy and resume life

Easier said than done but i pray life gets back to normal for all those hapless victims.


26th August 2007:
Just as i was reeling from the shock of previous night's tragedy comes the news that a friend's dad had expired due to a massive cardiac arrest. It took them nearly 2 hours to find a doctor qualified enough and he pronounces him dead on arrival. Most of the local hospitals were oblivious to the fact that he was being brought in and hardly cared.Their reason was its a sunday. The pathetic morons. Hope they rot in hell.
Its disgusting and when i realise that the guy doesnt have his dad to lean onto, i'm left helpless. His bro was remarkably composed and went through it all bravely.

May ur soul rest in peace sir.
My condolences to everyone there.

These two days did teach me never to take life for granted.

I have no idea what made me write this post. maybe i want to get rid of these feelings but i only hope everyone realises the importance of life for the harmony of all concerned.

Ads Galore

the first ad i understood while watching tv. was really an amazing experience especially with my dad explaining all the technicalities of the ad :)

This was prolly the first ad i ever saw on Doordarshan. The new Bajaj ad has this real good music on the electric guitar(???), which made me dig this one out. The ads really good. worth a watch :)

Its prolly one of the most comical and effective ads i've ever come across. Heres to the ad community b-)

Beryl continued

The Burn Effect-my fav :)

BERYL UNLEASHED !!!!

Beryl!! Hurray !!!!!!!!!!!!

Its taken me a week of relentless browsing, compiling, messaging and what not to get Beryl working in full flow(almost, only the cube's left out :) ).

My AMD rig was almost in tatters. I use an integrated graphics chipset, the ATI xpress 200G. With 2 giggers of RAM, and 128 MB of shared video memory, Beryl should work like a breeze.
But all good things come at the cost of painstaking effort and i found that out the hard way.

The problem is ATI is so screwed a company (i cant believe i'm saying this but yeah). They dont support AIGLX, the most commonly used rendering platform for Open GL on most linux machines.
Now since AIGLX doesnt work, i need to use the FGLRX driver with the XGL platform.
To accomplish this formidable task, i had to compile my own FGLRX module since my kernel hates supporting it. I use Ubuntu Feisty and kernel 2.6.20 something.
Then started all the trouble,
First the module refused to build due to lack of adequate compiler resources.
Second the ATI driver i was using didnt support my version of XORG i.e 7.2.

So whats the first thing i do ?? Try to downgrade my XORG to 7.1 which is supported by ATI.
Doing so, i realise the easiest way would be to perform a complete distro downgrade :D from the command line. Normally one would upgrade by editing the sources.list file, so i presumed the same editing would result in a downgrade. The catch here was that no one with a sane mind had ever attempted that :P
So finally when i do that, my system booted normally but all i was left with was a broken X server (the display protocol). The good thing with linux is that even though theres no GUI, the CUI provides a definite way out. The CUI is in fact much more powerful than the GUI and thus was a hope to recover my system.

Normally, when such a thing happens, my first instinct is to format the whole disk and reload the OS. This time i was close to doing that, the only factor that held me back was the presence of 34 movies and 50 GB worth of music, not to forget all my projects and custom files.
The very thought of losing all that devastated me. So i resolved for the first time, i was not gonna take the easy way out and would fix the OS.
Heres where i have stress on the importance of forums and the umpteen how-tos and the guides splattered all over the web and not to forget Shashank :) the best advice was to change the sources.list and upgrade back to Feisty.
That i did and then, realised that i messed up big time cos though i had upgraded, none of the desktop environments had been installed. So i start installing XFCE first. I like XFCE- i seem to like its cleanliness unlike KDE and GNOME which seem messy.

Then i realise that my original XFCE install was screwed so this was the same story. So finally i do something worthwhile and install ubuntu-desktop a.k.a.GNOME.
To do that this is what i had to do


Add the edgy main repos to the sources.list

sudo apt-get update

and then

sudo apt-get install -f libdrm2/edgy libdrm-dev/edgy libgl1-mesa-dev/edgy libgl1-mesa-dri/edgy libgl1-mesa-glx/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11-dbg/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11-dev/edgy libglu1-mesa/edgy libglu1-mesa-dev/edgy libosmesa6/edgy libosmesa6-dev/edgy mesa-common-dev/edgy mesa-swx11-source/edgy mesa-utils/edgy x11-common/edgy x11proto-damage-dev/edgy x11proto-gl-dev/edgy x11proto-input-dev/edgy x11proto-randr-dev/edgy xbase-clients/edgy xdmx/edgy xdmx-tools/edgy xkb-data/edgy xkeyboard-config/edgy xlibmesa-dri/edgy xlibmesa-gl/edgy xlibmesa-glu/edgy xlibs-dev/edgy xlibs-static-dev/edgy xnest/edgy xorg/edgy xserver-xephyr/edgy xserver-xorg/edgy xserver-xorg-core/edgy xserver-xorg-dev/edgy xserver-xorg-input-acecad/edgy xserver-xorg-input-aiptek/edgy xserver-xorg-input-all/edgy xserver-xorg-input-digitaledge/edgy xserver-xorg-input-elographics/edgy xserver-xorg-input-fpit/edgy xserver-xorg-input-hyperpen/edgy xserver-xorg-input-kbd/edgy xserver-xorg-input-magellan/edgy xserver-xorg-input-mouse/edgy xserver-xorg-input-mutouch/edgy xserver-xorg-input-palmax/edgy xserver-xorg-input-spaceorb/edgy xserver-xorg-input-summa/edgy xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/edgy xserver-xorg-input-tek4957/edgy xserver-xorg-input-void/edgy xserver-xorg-input-wacom/edgy xserver-xorg-video-all/edgy xserver-xorg-video-apm/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ark/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ati/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ati/edgy xserver-xorg-video-chips/edgy xserver-xorg-video-cirrus/edgy xserver-xorg-video-cyrix/edgy xserver-xorg-video-dummy/edgy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev/edgy xserver-xorg-video-glint/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i128/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i740/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i810/edgy xserver-xorg-video-imstt/edgy xserver-xorg-video-mga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-neomagic/edgy xserver-xorg-video-newport/edgy xserver-xorg-video-nv/edgy xserver-xorg-video-rendition/edgy xserver-xorg-video-s3/edgy xserver-xorg-video-s3virge/edgy xserver-xorg-video-savage/edgy xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion/edgy xserver-xorg-video-sis/edgy xserver-xorg-video-sisusb/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tdfx/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-trident/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tseng/edgy xserver-xorg-video-v4l/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vesa/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vmware/edgy xserver-xorg-video-voodoo/edgy xutils/edgy xvfb/edgy x-window-system/edgy x-window-system-core/edgy

that should normally do the trick. In case of any problems, refer to the forums :)

Then came installing the driver. For that i had to struggle real hard.


i followed parts of various guides. One command from and another from another guide. It was painful to say the least.

First time i tried

glxgears

on the 7.1 Xorg, it gave me values in the region of 55k. Even an 8800GTX struggles to score 40k. What the heck ??? Mebbe my video card is better than the 8800 :p

Then i tried building the FGLRX module again to no avail. Kept trying real hard, was reading almost every available wiki on Beryl then i realised that Direct rendering was actually enabled.
Was pleasantly surprised for once.
All that was left now was to install Beryl and get it to work.
this time glxgears gave me sane numbers around 3k.

Good. So a simple

sudo aptitude install beryl emerald-themes

was all that was left and was accomplished in no time.

Now Beryl's installed and all thats left is to configure it and enjoy it in its full fledged glory.

Hopefully i can get the Cube to work and then it'll surely be worth all the effort.

Soporofic Tediums

at last the demon's off my back :p

now that i've got loads of time to waste, i need to think up of innovative ways to waste time. A second seems like an eternity now. Wonder when was the last time, i felt this way about vacations.

The Monaco grand prix,2007 has to be a historic event.
It marked the first time, i mean first time ever i had slept through a Formula One race. omg.
Ever since i've been watching F1, ( its a looong time, 12 years to be precise and 169 races to be exactly right) i've NEVER slept through a Formula One race. Maybe it was because i was relieved at holidays finally but that aint reason enough.
The race was nice, from the Mclaren point of view, so boring for me. I could not bear to see the Ferrari's losing time hand over fist as the McLarens set fastest lap after fastest lap.

Yeah, i've seen that umpteen times with the McLarens at the receiving end but this time was inexplicable. Ferrari were outclassed or thats what the news is ( i slept after the 30th lap and never saw Monaco again :( )

Maybe i can take consolation that monaco is a one of a kind circuit with real high downforce levels and when we go back to sane circuits in the form of Montreal and Indianapolis, i hope the prancing horses can dish out some McLarenesque treatment to the others.



btw Man United won the premier league :D for the 9th time and the top division title for the 16th time. Giggsy now has 9 medals in 16 seasons. Wow thats some longevity in a sport where 10 years is a premium.
They lost the FA cup though to Chelshits. yuck.

Federer beat Nadal at long last at the Hamburg masters. It was on the cards but it did take a long time coming. Now i hope Federer realises his dream of THE Grand Slam.
He has a silken touch thats its a pleasure watching the ball off his racquet. The grace and beauty of his shots are profoundly heart warming

need to crash. later

Exams- for the last time....

The general opinion(read Shashank) floating around about this blog is that i crib a lot about exams :P
when one is a part of a system where exams are basically the be-all and end-all of life, one cannot help but complain about the highly ridiculous values attached to exams.
Today, all that one looks at is ur marks.

This was a conversation with a dad's colleague(AB) and me

AB: Hi! Hows it going ?
Me: Fine. The usual nothing new.

AB: So hows college ? Did u know that my nephew achieved a whopping 94% last year. U know thats no mean feat. Lotta companies are actually queuing up to get his signature. I hear he has an offer for 50k +
Me: Wow.Thats so amazing.

AB: Wow ??? thats an amazing achievement which is unparalleled so far in his college. so how are ur academics shaping up ?
Me: They are alright. I've managed a decent 84% aggregate so far and hope to keep it hovering around that figure.

AB: 84 ???? (hes shocked) thats nothing in today's world. no one is gonna offer u a penny more than what they offer those backlog riddled canditates. U need atleast a 90% if u wanna get into a decent company.

This irked me and i was nearly losing it now. First he makes a saint outta his nephew, who does nothing but mug all day and then he makes a mockery of the marks i so struggled to score.
Thats the way people treat u. ur marks either make u or break u.

But this trend is highly prevalent only in the southern states as it is with a professional degree. Only in the southern part of India will u find a person who scored 95% and gets into a commerce course being ridiculed.
When i gave my class 12 boards, to get into St.Stephens, Delhi for a B.Com(hons) course, one needed an absolutely mindboggling 94%. here in hyderabad, at nizams college for a similar course, a 80% would have sufficed. Thats quite evident of the demand for professional degrees and the lack of it for traditional commerce and arts degrees in the south.

Today if you arent an engineer or doctor or if u arent studying to be one, ur a misfit in the society. Thats the craze and i must admit that even i've been caught up in this mad race for minting greenbacks.
i would have loved to take up history as a major but reasons and circumstances not to be disclosed have ensured that i too have jumped into this pool of to-be engineers.

wow. i've sure come a long way. So as i was saying, i am justified in complaining about my exams cos they serve no purpose atleast in my case. they are just another waste of time which i could have spent a little more constructively.
But life aint a bed of roses and yeah these are some of the thorns u do encounter. I only hope to get rid of them without injuring myself too much.


P.S. i've decided this is the last time i'm talking about exams on this platform. ;)

P.P.S. i'm very bad at making resolutions :D

"I don't love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful.”--- Natalie Portman

Jobless exams

the jobless community now witnesses the return of its most honored member. Well all i have in my defence is that now is exam time and thus i am jobless :D

newayz endsem time and as usual these end sems suck. they are going down the same lane as all end sems are meant to- the drain. i cant seem to comprehend the fact that my attention span is no longer what it used to be. Cant even seem to sit for a couple a minutes with any book be it text or otherwise. After some detailed analysis, the conclusion points to one fact- my ubuntu box :((
Improbable is the word when i realise that i'm still running Ubuntu. Fesity Fawn rocks \:D/
God bless Ubuntu :)

and then i've found my long lost love- Mine sweeper- that pic beside this post, says something about my minesweeping ability :p HAIL Robert Donner and Curt Johnson. and i hate admitting this but need to give credit where its due and that is the case with Microsoft. Thank you for introducing me to the best game in this big bad world.

Talking of games, i realise that computer gaming is big time in India today. A multi million dollar industry, sure tempts me with all the moolah involved. But what would i create- maybe a franchise like Warcraft or FIFA. Would go a long way in making me uber rich :)

and yeah end sems are here to stay for another 3 weeks or so and i realise that i need to buck up and start else i may end up with a backlog-the ultimate deterrent in my quest to get rid of engineering in one go. and yeah i think i gotta jump the bandwagon again in terms of the GRE and crap like that. some people never listen :(

found this quote in the papers and realise how true it is
"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

thats male chauvinism i suppose :p

geeky me !!!!!

thats some revelation !!!!!!!!!!

Now i'm the SUPREME COMPUTER GEEK GOD !!!! >:) >:) >:) >:)
muahahaha :p

Mutterings..

i've realised that the ubuntu way of naming distros is very appeasing to hear. some of them are
hoary hedgehog, breezy badger, dapper drake, edgy eft and the latest in the ranks Feisty Fawn.

A wild guess behind this naming convention maybe that the first word prolly describes the features of the distro while the second word is the animal that resembles the distro at best :O :O
wow thats some logic :)

But the real reason behind this post is that i wanna tell Microsoft to go take a hike. I no longer endorse Microsoft or any of its products. I am 24x7 dependant on Linux and all thanks to ubuntu.
But my spare hard drive does run Vista for the benefit of others who might want to use my comp.

Now that, the latest edition of ubuntu i.e Feisty has a stable release, i plan to upgrade.
i am now stuck in two minds whether to use a sudo upgrade or do a complete reformat. A few months ago, i wld surely have chosen a reformat but now a sudo aptitude seems more fun and seems like the way to tinker with Linux.

But i do have some issues with Linux where the easy solution wld be to use lame Windows, but the trouble shooting of the problem and the ecstasy of striking the jack pot is a feeling to be experienced especially for Linux newbies like me.

The worst issue with Linux is that, no matter what i do, i cant seem to get Beryl running. Sometimes, the drivers arent installed properly and sometimes the Beryl-manager keeps crashing. I knw that hardware wise, my PC is more than capable of handling Beryl. But i havent been able to get it up and running. That does rise my frustration levels to an extremity.

And something else i miss on linux are Games. I really miss FIFA '07 and NFS big time. I wish i can find some replacements for those and yeah i also miss Yahoo :((
Gaim is very useful in a lotta ways but the Yahoo games are a really nice way to fight boredom.
but with gaim, i can use multiple accounts at once, and thats really kewl b-)

On a lighter note, Zee sports is gonna launch a breakaway cricket league on the lines of the Kerry Packer one. The BCCI reaction is to be seen

i'm bored and i think i'm gonna start blabbering nonsense, i.e. if ur kind enough to treat the above matter as non-nonsensical :O

A tragedy called CRICKET

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery and today is the present – a gift make the most of it"

R.I.P
Robert Andrew Woolmer
(1948-2007)

The Cricket world cup is on and the less i talk about it, the better.


It really couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, what with the revelations that the Legendary Bob Woolmer was murdered in cold-blood. Thats some news and some incident.

The fact that the murder was immediately after Pakistan lost to rank outsiders Ireland and theories of match fixing doing the rounds, gives the story a Bollywood feel ( i haven't seen a bollywood movie for a good part of a decade now :) )
But the conspiracy theorists and the rumor mongers are having a field by shooting away their mouths to glory :p Some say captain Inzamam was highly infuriated by Bob's attitude and wanted to kill him while some say the others in the team silenced him cos they were scared outta their wits that he might reveal their roles in match fixing.
What ever be the motive behind the grotesque murder and who ever be the cold-blooded, heartless killer, the biggest loser is the sport. Cricket has now lost a man of immense stature who could mould a world beating side from a pretty ordinary one.
The success of the South African team during the 1990's bears ample testimony to Woolmer's abilities as a coach and a man-manager. i think he was prolly the unluckiest ( along with SA) to have not won the world cup.

But the other news is that the defeat to Ireland virtually knocked Pakistan outta the world cup. But they can take consolation from the fact that their eternal rivals, India too have been knocked out.

Being an Indian ( dont think i call myself that very often ), it gives me immense satisfaction that the most despised sport in the country has lived upto its reputation. Now its only gonna get more dearer to the people :p (thats my sarcasm at its best :) )

but on a serious note, the fact is, the world's best batting line-up is a thing of the past when referred to the Indian cricket team. These guys suck and how they sucked is another story to be told. No one wld have expected them to lose to minnows Bangladesh, well the Bangladeshis did give sufficient warning about the outcome of the match during the build-up to it.
But even,then these guys are bad and they really are bad.
Now everyone is gunning for Chappell's head, but i dont think its fair. The guy needs a free reign over the team and only then can he be expected to deliver the goods.

P.S i think Chappell might be terrified to continue after Woolmer's death lest he become the next victim of the Sub continental Cricketing maniacs

But the people i pity the most are the sponsors. The whole of the World Cup is basically driven by Indian greenbacks, so the Indian exit doesn't bode well with the advertiser's plans. All their campaigns need to be stopped or atleast cut short cos no more will India be a lucrative ad market.

I hear, their losses are to the tune of about 500 crores. Man thats some money. Why cant they just gimme some of that, morons >:P
they dont support educational institutions but support losers. I refer to the time when i ran behind a few companies for my tech fest sponsorship. They gave me all sorts of petty reasons but now they pump in crores and crores to support a bunch of good for nothing, money crazy, and a group of lazy so called professional cricketers

sheeesh this is India, no wonder


btw this post reflects me at my digressing best :p

KIMI

i'm back and this unhealthy rate of blogging has surely been forcing me to abandon this crap but i dunno why i'm still here

newayz i think i found something to write about.

P.S when i read other blogs, i realise i'm a narcissist in the true sense of the word, so readers u better be prepared to accept my view else u can take a hike :p


ITS PARTY TIME \:D/
Reason 1: the F1 season is back

Reason 2: Ferrari are winning and winning Big

Reason 3: kimi is back to winning form

Reason 4: hmm. i think i've run outta reasons. i'll come back to this when i have more reasons

but the fact is this seasons opener at Melbourne had a funny feeling about it. no Michael Schumacher for the first time in 15 years. and thats some feeling. i'm sadddened when i realise that GOD isnt gonna scorch the tracks nemore but the fact that Kimi is his suitor to his Ferrari legacy is of some consolation.

Well the season's opener was a mixed bag of emotions for me. Kimi won the race sleeping while Massa had to work up his way from 20 to 6th at the chequered flag.

the fact that the Finnish anthem sounds so nice had never dawned upon me. mebbe i was too caught up in Michael GOD schumacher and his exploits :p

neways i think i gotta get used to the Finnish anthem, cos its prolly my only hope of never hearing the Spanish one ever again.

btw i hope Lewis Hamilton is given a free reign and shows lamer Alonso his rightful place at the back of the grid

:p :p :p

Tech..........

its been long since i last posted something, and i cant seem to help the fact that this blog is pretty boring.

this month ,a computer magazine had a separate booklet on blogging. Reading that made me feel sorry for myself. i had no clue that people can make millions through blogging. An indian guy has this blog about technology reviews and so and makes around a cool million rupees a month. WOW :o

www.labnol.blogspot.com

thats some serious shit.

and the worlds most popular blog www.perezhilton.com, makes a lot of greenbacks which are practically uncountable.

but these guys are all serious bloggers, spending about 16-20 hrs a day on blogging alone. thats some job
well i guess if ur really into a job and that job actually rewards u with loads of moneybags, then u really shouldn't mind spending even 24 hrs a day.

i knw i wouldn't.

well all this money talk about bloggers is getting into me and who knows maybe in the next few months u might see me in their ranks and raking in all the moolah ;)