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Sunday, April 24, 2005

Its Funny

I am a big fan of Alizee(Infact I am trying hand at learning French too). So I was searching for her wallpapers/pics I found this one, which seems funny to me.

My Inspiration to learn French!

The reason is that the meaning of the word written on the shirt is ..... [updated: thanks to Ali for the comment] Delicacies, what a pun. [source of meaning is google language tools->french to english.]

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Finally a Digital Camera

Papa bought a DigiCam from Delhi I have not yet seen it but I have browsed the net for its specs. They are all pretty good except for the Memory of 32 MB. [Update: I forgot to mention the model its Kodac DX7590]

The camera offers a 5MP resolution photographs but the modes for shooting shown in the specs say the max resolution and 2576x1932 and min resolution to be 1552x1164 which looks foolish to me, why can't they allow lower resolution of 1200x1024 also, so that photos can be seen easily in a comp ? On the other hand the Video resolution is max of 640x480, which looks terribly low.

The zoom is 10X optical and 3X digital which looks ok. ( I can't compare it with anything as of now).

I am looking for the memory options, its looks like a 64 MB MMC/SD card is 20$; 128 is 40$ ; 512 is 80$ and 1 GB is 130$, so the price is almost direcly proportional to size which is quite strange compared with the IDE hard disk prices I knew( increasing memory from 40 to 80 GB meant an cost change of 60$ to 70$ , that two one year ago). I wonder if the USB slot for camera will allow me attach that USB hard drive which will give around 120 GB for just 150$, well the only reason for buying that much memory will be that it will be usable with PC too.

I don't know if this camera is an overpriced one, its cost is 25000/-.

Mahavir Jayanti

It was Mahavir Jayanti yesterday, 4 of us(myself, Abhay, Chaitanya and Arpit) have pre decided to go to temple so we left the campus at around 7:45 AM for Aagapura Jain temple. We must have reached the temple by around 8:30 AM.

The temple was nicely decorated, (I have taken some snaps will take some time to get them done.) from this temple we decided to move to the other temple at begum bazaar, I was thinking it wud be a new place but thanks to my parents' visit last month I have seen this place already. ( During my parents 2-3 days of stay at Hyderabad I have been to temple more no. of times then I was in my 4 years all together).

Photos Inside the temple.
MyB'day

Mahaveer Jayanti 2005



In between we ate some good stuff at a Rajasthani sweet shop. Then We had the pleasure of seeing the Procession by some group of jain, Abhay remarked that this is the first time he is seeing so many Jain together. The procession was quite large in size thought numbers were lacking. (That 80-20% rule applies to Dharmic ppl, 20% of ppl perform 80% of religious activities). We came back to IIIT by 10:30 AM.

Photos At the Procession
Mahaveer Jayanti 2005

Mahaveer Jayanti 2005
Its surely another memorable outing in Hyderabad.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara...

Two three days back I happen to see this Jana Gana Man by A.K.Rahmaan video in Ramneek's room, I remembered the great old Mile sur Mera Tumhara which was one of my favourite of such patriotic songs shown on DD1.

In fact, In first year I wanted to suggest this song being done by my batchmates during the freshers, but I knew most ppl would discard the idea on its face so I hesistated to speak. To my surprize some fellows at MIT have done really what I was willing to do. These people have made a remake of the original song with all ppl in the video being replaced by America Based Indians. I was just searching for downloading this sound and got these people's webpage. Follow the links http://www.mit.edu/~kapoor/mile_sur_small.wmvLink http://web.mit.edu/anoop/www/msur/milesur50.mpg

for downloading the video. Its a really great peice of work.

This reminds me of my earlier observation of seeing the movie American Desi, People in America are more inspired by Indian culture, heritages etc compared to ppl inside. In the movie too they show how passionate some Indian youths were about Indian Dances like Garba, Bhangada etc and see here in none of the college fests I have ever heard of anything Indian. (We did try Dandia in our Culfest once and it was a great experience except that people didn't know how to dance and no-one was ready to listen, we cud never form a single big circle with all people, the way dandia was supposed to be done, instead people stood in pairs or triplets or at max group of 6-7). All the people somehow enjoy those DJs which doesn't look anything great to me.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

13 April 2005

I am 21 now, Don't know any about any great benefit/loss in being 21 old. Haan I am eligible for marriage by Indian laws but that hardly helps( I have no such plans for atleast 4-5 years) Well if you know sthg better about being 21 years old please let me know. (Well last year it was Loosing teenage)

The great thing I realized is there are 2 ppl in IIIT, who will say same to you when said Happy B'day by me they are kartika and shiben. All three were born on same day same year!
Thanks to all the well wishers.

The delicious cake.
My B'day Celebrations


Break between bumps
My B'day Celebrations Break between bumps!

Thanks for being there! Can't imagine next B'day, will miss u a lot :(
My B'day Celebrations Thanks for being there!

Somethings are essential to make things memorable. Bumps are just one of them.
My B'day Celebrations Recieving bumps!


Cake on my face!
My B'day Celebrations Cake on my face

After washing my face, gupta brought the camera
My B'day in 2005

My B'day in 2005

My B'day in 2005

Monday, April 11, 2005

The Little Hut Party

I thank all the people present for making the party a memorable event. Thanks to Amal, Majji, tintin and Akhil for active help in organization. Thanks to Jenny and Bapu for photographs, Ravichandra for camera and car services :) bole for his bike. Underscore and Deepika for support behind the scenes.

I hope we will have more memorable batch reunions ahead.

DC==Dumb Charades.
Group Photo (Girls and Jenny missing :( )

Akhil Ki Bari (Dumb Cherades)..


Vindhya Indicating something (Dumb Charades)..


Everyone is busy (Dumb Cherades)..

Ramneek trying Dumb Cherades...

Thanks to Organizers...

Tintin Revealing some secrets

Bothra (DC)

Swati at DC (missed this, came late)

Rocky did everything but we cudn't guess

Please take our snap..:)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Million Dollar Baby

Was interested in watching some movie, so I decided to write to ramneek if he has any good movie in his mind and pc. We had lots of options we finally decided Million Dollar Baby.

The movie was long and I didn't feel anything new in it most movies say about never loosing etc stuff. but yes the conclusion was good. I also liked this dialogue by a boxing newbie at the end of movie, when he comes back and join boxing. Anyone can loose one fight.

Ramneek as usual( I have seen 2.3 movies in his room) slept before the movie finished.

Got this Idea after hearing those bad(old ppl's) voices in american accent: Why don't have a way of reading the scripts when the movie is playing. some tools like Festival or other TTS should be changeable to work this way. What we can achieve is having ppl speak in our local accent or atleast clear voice.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

the best nightout till date...

After getting f'ed up in our BS test, we started working over our BS project which we have to finish by 11 Mornign(Chandu, Nimmi and Arjun are leaving on 12). Did some great amount of BC in cvit 1 for 2 hrs or so. Then stared working, got Windows Installed on Pelu's PC, so we can work for 2-3 days without interruption. Installation etc were proceeding, so I went back to my room to comfort myself (My stomach has been in trouble since morning)/

When I was coming back after collecting some h/w from Sambabu, Nir was on his back to room. Than I saw Sandeep and Dixit on the bike. After some BC we were got 3 bikes ready at OBH and six of us, Sandeep, Amal, Dixit, Vidit, Rokcy and me(Vardhman its helps in indexing ;-)). we on our way to SOME PLACE to eat. We went to the petrol pump first, It was on our way to Ohri's It was probably the first time I was going thru that Road at least on a 2 seater. The Road is good so the speeds were great, I and Rokcy were on Boles' bike, Sandeep and Dixit on Graptor(Sanyam) and Amal and Bansi on Pulsar(AU's). Our bike must have been the slowest but even it was moving at around 60-70 KMPH on average.

Nightout

It was around 2 AM. We were at Ohris' Ordered some Bulls Eye and some Coffees as nothing else was available. We left at around 3AM, towards Dugam Cheeru. In the way of which we spent some time on an omlet and Tea shop. Spent some great amount of time sitting there. Vidit had to go to hostel and come back due to some reasons Dixit accompanied him. We 4 meanwhile walked on that round discussing various things. All those similar questions of what to do in life etc.

Nightout

Nightout

Then we moved ahead to Durgam Cheeru. It was a nice place to be in, the Water reflecting the lights and the cool temperature also no mosquitos. Some fellows came in tractor and asked us to move as some kinda blast was gonna happen. So we moved from there decided to go to some park kinda near M$ premises near ISB. Me and Chandu were on Pulsar which he allowed me to drive we reached a lot ahead just to realize that the other 4 were nowhere near us, we started to go back to see that these ppl Amal and Dixit were learning how to drive a bike on the way ;-)
It was already around 5AM. We came back to our the small breakfast shop in front of IIIT to eat puri's but we were told it will take around 1 more hr, so we came back to hostel to return the bikes and then played CS for 1hr in lab and decided to avoid those Puris' and go back to sleep.

Most of us aggree about this being one of the best nightouts in IIIT.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Socha Na Tha

Rating 9/10. Excellent movie, it made much more sense to me as I have been facing a similar situation as the hero in the film faced, and I was also too confused with the options I had. I feel better seeing that others also face such situations in life. (The movie may be hypothetical in story but what they show looks quite possible).

The Hero was so much confused with which girl to marry, one was his GF (very pretty one) from last 3 years whom he felt like he loved and other was this another heroine whom he met first time when he went to her house for kinda arrange marriage. The hero gets confussed only after meeting this second girl 2-3 and spending some time with her on a Goa Trip. He causes great troubles in all the 3 families, but finally he takes a correct decision(probably ;)) at least the one that his heart agrees too. It reminds me of what Bapu and Manoj were saying one day,
Manoj:you are so much against Billi that whatever he does he cannot rise in ur opinion.
Bapu: you should never get too obsessed with anything in ur life, (kabhi bhi life mein kisi cheej, ya kisi pe (including girl) itna junoon nahin aana chaiye ke you cannot see other options).
I admitted bapu's remark and decided to be more open in my perspective towards/against M$ and all. I would put the same thing as "you should always be open to new options even when you are mad about current ones, you never know how fruitful and great the new options can prove to be, before you evaluate them".

Its a real good movie a much see.

Building Science Exam Screwd up

In these endsems I have only 2 exams, BS and Ethics, Today was BS exam and even after preparing quite hard yesterday and today morning I screwd it up. Basically what all I, Akhil and Vinod Gupta studied for these two day combinely sitting in the lab proved less fruitful as most question came from what we didn't study at all.

Most questions came from topics, Engery plus, elevator, space allocation which were completely ignored by us and so I think all 3 of us are equally f'ed up.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

trying some big changes in myself

When I got those testimonial in Farewell book(yearbook)[mostly saying techy etc], I recalled back the time when some one asked me What are ur hobbies? Before I could start saying slashdot, newsgroup etc stuff, this fellow put a important filter He said what other than computers interests you? I felt embarrased for I was not able to find much in that category, I had not given any heed to my non tech hobbies since long.

Mostly it has been due to my addiction to Linux, Open Source etc, but I have still not analysed the reason for the change completely and hope to do so over time.

Anyways I have decided to try other non techie things, I have promised myself to not go ahead with any more science fictions, my movie interests have changed since long I only enjoy comedy and Romantic movie nowadays, though some awesome graphics movie are ofcourse never missed. Slashdot visit frequency has been brought down to around 1 or max 2 in a day. I am willing to read more stuff on ppl's blog about life, Nature, philosophy etc. That should make a perfect time pass I feel. I also being trying all those computer games but have normally sucked in them.

Topcoder SRM Experiences...

Third time I participated in SRM. The previous time my rank score badly from 977 to something around 650 today nothing great. I was able to solve the first question very quickly spent around 20 minutes in second one all due to poor pratice and thinking. The third problem was an unlucky incidence, I just finished it when the time was over, it did pass all the test but ah it doesn't matter.

I am learning from Topcoder competitions how important it is to save every second, I could have been in much better place had i submitted 3rd question just 30 seconds or so earlier.

When I see codes written by other I feel how my coding sucks. I didn't know how to use iterators or map and learnt them during the contest, how pathetic? I had to refer to html documentation of STL on net for both of them and ofcourse every second wasted there costed me.

Other thing I have learnt over time is to appreciate the beauty of JAVA, any code in topcoder competitions in JAVA looked more cleaner and efficient than similar ones in C++. String mainpulation in JAVA simply rocks. I realize the importance of being perfect in whatever u know. I have partial knowledge of JAVA and partial of C++, so finding bugs in others code during the challenge phase doesn't work well either. Not sucessful as yet.

Final Conclusion Practice make man perfect!

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Chitchats

Went out with Gupta in the evening to Indranagar. We ate panipuri, samosa and then drank Ganne ka Ras. We discussed lots of ideas of what we plan to do. Gupta is also thinking of betting on some business. I feel many others have similar thoughts, we are quite sure we won't be interested in some shitty work like making HTML pages or documentation of something not coded by us, this forces us see how we can use our knowledge in IT more efficiently.

When it comes to entreprenureship( I am even sure of its spelling), we aren't sure. Ofcourse not all ppl in the world who open companies make success. Also opening a company is much different than opening a shop, you need to have some focus and beat others in the field to get success, which may not be very simple. My idea has been working on our own projects in part time. This way we can try out some things and when we are sure to go ahead we shall be able to do so. The risk is quite less here, because losing put us on same place where we are now, while winning has great probability too.

The other day we(Me, Jagga and Pelu) were discussing problem with opening a vision company, Pelu pointed out how difficult it will be to compete to Giants like Sarnoff who have the excellence in concepts as well as infrastructure to research. I have still not given much thought on these issues.

After coming back Me, raheja, PB and Dixit were just doing BC but following important things came up.
Raheja: We don't realize the importance of things we get easily.
PB: The value of things are most realized when they are lost.
(Don't remember if some other thing was missed).

Friday, April 01, 2005

Some Good news from Home

My Bro was able to pass through well and has move to standard 9th. Nothing great in general view but my bro has been struggling at studies for all past years, I never understood when he will get interested in studies and pass well, probably the time has come. I myself got the realization for working for excellence in standard 7th.