11 Dec 08 A month has gone by!
I never expected a month to go by so soon! I updated this blog by November 11th. So I decided to do justice to my old blog. When I logged in, I was surprised to see Wordpress 2.7 available! Yahoo! I immediately did an auto upgrade, thanks to automatic upgrade plugin. The interface looks sleek and cool and I guess the guys have worked so hard on this.
Everything is totally different with respect to UI. You have quickpress available at your dashboard, to make a quickie. I’m still searching for the options. Dunno where it went. Well, have to get used to this version. Incidentally, this is my 120th post. 
Tags: auto upgrade, blog, new wordpress, updated, wordpress
23 Oct 08 No Rain. No School.
It has always been like this. Metrological department usually get it all wrong everytime and they inform the state government to declare holiday for all schools. As a part of the unspoken agreement with the rain god and our metrological dept, there won’t be any rain.
Now, why would I bother about it and blog it?. I have a reason too. Kids. Kids. Kids. Man o Man, you have to have a lot of patience to endure the noise they make. Nearly 16 shorties came and played cricket, making quite a racket. I had no other choice than to endure it. When it was 6 pm and rain started, they adjourned. Man, was I at peace atlast!!
Tags: boring day, kids, rain, school
16 Oct 08 Blog visits = 0
Since the model exam started, my blog visits became 0. No body has visited my blog for the past 6 days! Damn! Stop studying so hard guys! Take some time off and visit my blog as and Infotain yourselves..
Tags: zero visits
14 Oct 08 Yahoo! Model exams over!
Finally, a breathing space from today onwards. The model exams are over. Last exam being Information security for one set of guys and Cryptography for a measly few people. Now, mind you, it isn’t the exam that is nerve wrecking, but writing them for 3 hours is. After 6 long semesters, writing exam for 3 full hours to get a score above 50 or 60 is becoming a pain in the neck.
A better system of assesing a candidate is of the essence now. I always believe, ‘A good science student knows how to conserve paper’. But it isn’t the case with the Anna University. The more you write, the better your chances are scoring good marks. That is why they came up with the concept ‘16 marks’. Ideally, detailed questions should be 10 marks only (like in our schooling), wherein the candidate can clearly express the ideas in a precise and concise manner.
If I ever become the Vice chancellor of Anna university (I don’t intend on even planning to become one), I will surely try to make amends and restore the lost life of poor bamboo trees.
Tags: AIHT, anna university, Bamboo tree, Exams, paper
07 Oct 08 No Mercy - Kicks A$$!
Recently I saw WWE Pay-per-view show ‘No Mercy’. Man, it was unbelieveable! The matches lined up were
1. ECW Championship
Matt Hardy (ECW Champion) vs Mark Henry - Matt hardy delivers TOF and retains title
2. Rey Mysterio vs Kane
If Rey loses, he should unmask. Kane gets disqualified for using a Steel chair
3. #1 Contenders Match
Batista vs JBL - Batista powerbombs his way to the World Heavyweight championship match
4. Women’s championship
Beth Phoenix(Champion) vs Candice Michelle - Phoenix’s glam slam makes sure she retains her title
5. Big Show vs Undertaker
Dirty and personal. Big show’s Big Fist puts an end to taker’s misery
6. WWE Championship Match
‘The Game’ Triple H vs ‘The Enigma’ Jeff Hardy. Game counters Hardy’s swanton into a pin and retains title
7. World Heavyweight Championship - Ladder Match
HBK Shawn Michaels vs Y2J Chris Jericho -Jericho was at the right end of the ladder at the right time to defeat the Show stopper.
Like it or not, we can observe that champions came in and walked out as retaining the title. The ladder match was brutal and HBK did what he wanted to do. Permanently disfigure Jericho’s face. There is a poll in WWE website for voting your favorite match. Since the match between Triple H and Jeff Hardy was too good, I voted for it.
Tags: Chris Jericho, ECW, Hardy, HBK, RAW, SMACKDOWN, Triple H, WWE
06 Oct 08 Sudden Change in STB
For a couple of days, my STB (Set Top Box) was not functioning properly. I didn’t know what the problem was and so I went to see my cable operator. Surprise was, the contract the cable operators signed up with SCV was over and they have now subscribed with Hathway. All the more advantageous to me, as I get to enjoy more channels at Rs.66 only where as I paid Rs.100 to get to enjoy a select few channels. Though the reception is quite bad I don’t care much. The programmes I watch on TV are
1. Sun Music (When I eat)
2. WWE Raw, Smackdown (If downloads aren’t available)
3. Movies in HBO, Star Movies (When I’m really really free)
4. Friends and Seinfeld (When I’m free)
Also, after changing to Hathway, RAW programme is aired in advance. Previously, If today is 6th October, they used to air the show which took place on 22nd September. But now, they air the show which took place on 29th september. So this sunday, its WWE No Mercy on Ten Sports.. Bah, who cares, I always watch WWE by downloading.
Tags: hathway, RAW, SCV, SMACKDOWN, STB, WWE
04 Oct 08 A Memorable day at IIT Madras
I consider myself very lucky as I was able to visit IIT Madras today. IITM conducted ‘Open House’, an activity/exhibition of sorts, where students from College or high school can visit and learn something useful. Started off to IIT by college bus by 9.30 AM and reached the place by 10 AM. Initially, we were confused as we didn’t know where to go to. Then it was decided that student may visit a particular department of his/her choice. A battery operated van took us (CSE students) to CSE block.
Computer Centre:
My first reaction upon visiting the Computer centre was astonishment. I was bowled out when I saw how the surveillance systems in IIT were and I was even more surprised to see a 128 Cluster Super computer in front of me which was used for academic and research purposes. The university is equipped with 45 Mbps Internet connection with Wi-fi setup all over the place. 45 Mbps?!.. That amounts to 4.5 MB/s download speed!
CSE Department - RISE Lab ( I forgot the expansion of RISE ):
Next place we paid visit was the RISE lab in second floor of the CSE department. All kinds of chipset and machines were neatly scattered (an oxymoron, perhaps?) here and there. A guy came and explained his project on Artificial Intelligence, which was about making an agent learn and transfer the knowledge base contents into another robot of a different type, using as minimum sensors and actuators possible. I was very nosey there and asked a lot of questions which irked many standing nearby (the hell I care :D)
CSE Department - Some Lab
Next up, we went in search of the Microsoft lab, but instead landed upon a lab where quiz and a game ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ was conducted. Quiz involved concepts from Principles of Compiler and Artificial Intelligence. Myself and my team mate Ram kumar managed to get 19/35 correct and since we scored the highest among the participants, we were rewarded with a ‘Anju Ruba’ Munch choclate. We also tried out the game ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ whose working is as follows:
Given search query $amitabh bachchan$ actor. What I should do is, I should use the search box (of a search engine) and should type something related to the words with $ but I should not use the enclosed words. For eg., if I have to search for Amitabh Bachchan, I can type BIGB as search query and not Amitabh bachchan itself. Also, the query word can be used only once in a maximum of 10 tries. I scored a total of 22.5 in 10 attempts and they calculated the relative score as 4.5. Incidentally, this was also the highest (previously 4.3) and we were rewarded with yet another ‘Anju ruba’ Munch choclate.
CSE Department - Visual programming Lab
I was impressed with the projects displayed in this lab. Face tracking, Graph generation by studying the soil (Red Soil, Alluvial soil etc) and the like. The lady in th e lab gave me a pamphlet which later got transformed into a paper rocket.
CSE Department - Microsoft Lab
Most boring lab. Nothing interesting. Period.
CSE Department - Wireless Lab
I should say that this lab contained project equally impressive as in the RISE lab. Sensors used for tracking the car’s movement, measurement of lighting in the room were some of the many.
CSE Department - Distributed Objects lab
Boring. Period.
Before leaving the block to have lunch, rain started to pour heavily. But I didn’t care less and made my way to the canteen. Had ‘Oru karandi Thakkali saatham’ for Rs.6 and chappathi for Rs.9. Later, I went outside and drank ‘Darjeeling Divine’ tea for Rs.20. The tea was worth it, I should say. Then we caught the Air conditioned bus that was going towards the Velachery gate and made our way out of the humongous 400 or more acre university campus.
I have to say that this post, my 97th in this blog is by far the longest with the Word count being 650.
End.
Tags: CSE Department, Fun, IITM, Labs
01 Oct 08 TechVista - Microsoft Research Symposium - Part 1
October 1, 2008
A very special day, and why not. I registered for the Microsoft Research symposium - “Techvista”, a few days back and I got the email confirming my registration on September 29th. I was excited and looked forward to attend the event. Next day, it was another pleasant surprise for me. I got an email ‘Important Information’ from Techvista guys, saying about few points to be noted. But the points that caught my eye were
1. Chartered buses will start from Tambaram and will drop you off at the same point in the evening - Oh yea!
2. Lunch session at 1 pm - OH YEAH!!
Last but not the least
3. 100 copies of Office 2007 to the winners of the lucky draw event - THATS GREAT!
Now then, I have 3 reasons that favor my decision to go to Tech vista. So, I started from my home, caught the bus waiting at Vasantha Bavan by 7 am. Reached Nandambakkam Trade centre by say 7.45, had tea and biscuits and went in at 9 am. I had the privilege of meeting Dr. John Hopcroft (rings a bell? - He is the author of our Theory of Computation book). Things started well, with Prof. Anandan of IIT Madras talking about the Digital India Heritage project. We were treated to a FANTASTIC visual demo of their project and I was introduced to a new technology ‘Photosynth’ of Microsoft. MAN! It was off the hook!
Next up, John hopcroft started his talk on optimizing the search engine. He started off well, but went too technical in the middle. I couldn’t understand a single bit of what his diagrams - mostly consisted of Graphs, edges, vertices - meant. Next came a professor, PhD laurete from Microsoft research team, who talked about all the aspects of playing with the camera. How much did I understand? - 0. Next up, a lady by the name Shafi Goldswayer, obsessed with Comic sans font came and gave a shoddy presentation. It was by far the worst presentation I’ve ever seen.
Lunch at 1 pm. Sine the morning breakfast at 10 pm turned out to be a scene from the Koyambedu market, I made it to the lunch room tad 10 minutes early and waited for the plates to arrive. But, the lunch session went pretty decently and the food was good, infact great!
Post lunch session - in Part 2
Tags: microsoft, research, techvista, trade center
14 Sep 08 A Grand reception
I thought yesterday’s event @ tagore engineering college was forgettable and hence the day should be a forgettable one too. But the reception of my Chittapa (V.V.Ramanan, Sports editor, The Hindu) was a good consolation. The event was very grand and I had the opportunity to hook up with my relatives after a long time. I met few VIPs, like Thalaivasal Vijay and others whom I don’t know. The food was excellent and the night out at the lawn of New Woodlands was great! The party got over at 10 o’ clock and we made our way back home, very tired.
Tags: ramanan, reception, thalaivasal vijay, the hindu, vip
08 Sep 08 if(OMR==ECR) -> returns true?!
Well, as my title suggests, OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road, now known as Rajiv Gandhi salai) is becoming as deadly as ECR (East Coast Road, Aravind raj) which is known for accidents/deaths of several people. Horrible accidents occur and my college bus was involved in one such accident a few days back. Now, the thing is, Sep 8, 2008 saw the end of a man riding a Bike. His was hit by a cement lorry at a god knows what speed that his body was contorted into a horrid form. His upper half was facing the sky and lower half facing inward. Worse, one of his legs was lying apart. That vivid image tells me ‘NEVER, EVER, EVER ride a bike on the OMR road’.
