Eyes of Dilettantes

Things to Remember

2007-11-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

One week to end sems, and I had loads on my mind. So I decided it was time to use the To-Do gadget on Google Sidebar once again. Here is the list I came up with :

Meet Kandy
MTH- Partial Differential Equations
MTH- Assignments
Start batti!
CHM- remember to arrange inorganic notes to study.
Thermodynamics, huh??
You are so fucked...

hehe,
aRKade.

Tesseract.

2007-11-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

Be sure that you read Nirbheek's Blog entry before you get around to reading this.

Well, this is sort of a flashback, giving a slightly detailed look into how things happened around here. This will be a sort of "The Silmarillion" prelude to the "Lord of the Rings" Bheek's blog.

Monday: Teja and I postpone the making of questions for a later date because both of us have had lab reports to make and things are not looking very up-ish right now.

Tuesday: Teja mails me this:

from tejaswi venumadhav
to musically.ut@gmail.com,
date Nov 6, 2007 1:32 PM
subject panic
mailed-by gmail.com

hide details Nov 6 (5 days ago)

E-mail:
panic!!
TESSERACT poster.jpg
4895K View Download

And, well, the Tesseract poster had 7th Wednesday 10:00 pm as its starting date.

-dumbfounded-

And this is when the fun starts ...

We both had classes immediately after this quaker of a conversation that we had and that mellowed our minds a bit. Getting down to work, we convinced ourselves with, what I call an overwhelming power of supposition, that we had enough questions ready among us and we got around to trying to code for the final thing. If you have read Bheek's blog, you would realize that we finally settled for a XSL+XML solution, but at that point in time, we were almost ready to start with a plain body with the html tags in it.

We were seriously thinking of excuses for a badly presented site.

Well, to tell the truth, calling Bheek up for the formidable task of putting up ten web pages for the world to see in 24 hours was the last thing that occurred to us.

We tried exploring various options with different web programmers ... but to no avail. After all, this was the period just before the end sems. Who would be schmaltzy enough to help two wretched children, one bereft of ice-creams and one of something-that-cannot-be-recalled-at-the-moments-notice. It was bound to be a disaster. And it was 26 hours away.

The knight in the shining armor (that made a lot of noise and came packaged with a pink invisible unicorn) ...

We called Bheek, 20:00.

I: Bheek, awake?
Bheek: Sort of, why, what happened? (He had that tone of apathy that you would find in a ten year old who is feeling very sleepy, and soon will be wrongfully blamed of faking it)
I: Ok. Code Red. You remember Tesseract? The online treasure hunt?
Bheek: Ugh ..huh ... !??!!!? (The click of apprehension was so loud that even Teja noted it)
I:Well, ten webpages, need to be uploaded.
Bheek: Wha ..!??!! Oh .. ok, when?
I: Before 10 pm tomorrow.
[---x--- I and Teja in a eye to eye moment, the kind that in the movies they do a stroboscopic bullet time spin around. ---x---]
Bheek: Oh .. well ... ok ... WTH ..
[--x-- I and Teja shouted loudly in the CC enterance ... --x--]

And the rest, I say, is history.

Just in case you haven't seen the site, I'll tell you that the presentation of the site was better that any site that I have ever seen. If you ever want a perfectionist for any job, get Bheek. Teja and I were sure ALL along that Bheek will be able to do it. We have not seen him do it before, we just knew.

He almost single handedly did the making of the site, as I fooled around taking their pics, at odd moments in time, as I thought that the tension was about to spill over.
And then, I there was the debugging period, and well, as they say, real time debugging is not easy. And its fun to panic there. -grim face-

We also had the funny moments when the next.pl was out in the open, and we had moments of agony with the image maps. However, we kept the source code astoundingly clear.

If there was something to be gotten out of the variegated experience they are:

The Students server needs to be made better.
Nirbheek should be caught for all Code Red conditions.
60sec exposure pictures are awesome
Well, coding in Perl is not always the best option.
XSL is a honking g0Od idea and I should try it sometime.
Teja's sense of humour is something that the world needs protection against.
I like panicking, and mess up people very nicely. ;) Ask Praneeth and Bheek :P

Well, it was nice ... and I think I would look back upon these are _something_ good that I did in my 5th semester, EE. Thanks Teja for the thing, and thanks Bheek for the night.

~
musically_ut

Its all so very strange ... it looked almost like all Nirbheek's night. With Teja and me taking a sort of a backseat. We all were tired, but Bheek has the dubious distinction of being the most nocturnal of all of us ... Maybe that explains things somewhat.

Auctions

2007-09-24T05:42:00.001-07:00

Have you ever noticed the auctions that regularly happen in Hall 3 (IITK)? Its just an passing incident to most, but if thought a little more than naught and little less than a lot, then they turn into a very interesting "occurrence" that in the true Freudian spirit reflects deeply upon the conditions of the individuals in the society.

Imagine this:

You are comfortably sitting in your living room at your home when owing to some compelling and not-hard-to-contrive reason you have to go out of the house to get something or the other. You go out on your bicycle. The transaction at the shop takes a little more than your RAM decay time and while coming back you have in your mind only a vestige of the Platonic idea of a bicycle which bothers you the least. Being of a philosophically perverse mind, you walk home with great ideas in your mind, some of them probably about the famous scientists who were so absent minded that they had to ask their co workers whether they had had dinner or not. D'oh. How stupid.

Nevertheless, you are back at your home and upon finding that you don't have the cycle with you. What is your reaction?

1. Rush back immediately to fetch it.
2. Reluctantly walk back preferably with an ill fated company.
3. Conveniently forget about the cycle for a period long enough that it stops to be a problem tp you and then finally, when the cycle has become the shop keeper's problem wholly, watching it being auctioned.

After all, he must have been a great man who had said that there are very few problems in the world that cannot be solved by optimal amounts of ignorance.

Worse, buying it off the shopkeeper for nearly a thousand rupees.

Musically yours,
Ut.

PS: I am planning to record how many people actually come to reclaim their cycles after the threat that their cycles will be auctioned is made public.

Aesthetical headaches.

2007-08-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

I am a victim of recurring headaches, and I have them often enough to make them fairly un-ignorable by others. I just went into a class with the type of headaches that is not cured by Disprins and got a suggestion that I should get a medical assessment done. I actually struggled to see why I am not doing that. Well, I found out one reason now.

I find the headaches aesthetically pleasing. I find that when I don't think in a straight line, I feel a little more liberated and at a heightened level of ease. My argument is on nearly the same lines as that of the cigarette smokers, who can make the almost valid claim that they are just bartering a few minutes of their life for an experience that they cannot get anywhere else. The headaches are nearly the fall in the same genre for me. I am afraid that I may actually get _cured_.

Makes sense?

~
musically_ut

My own Terabithia

2007-06-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

I just found one, where's yours ...?

After I watched the movie "Bridge to Terabithia", the most repeated question that I rigged Rohit Nagpal with was "Have you watched the movie 'Bridge to Terabithia'?". His initial responses were "No.", but though the answer soon became "yes", the questioning at the most absolutely useless moments continued. Finally I found my own Terabithia, with Nagpal.

We went west of campus, and saw some things that you probably will never see. There was the bridge, and then there was the beautiful moon, that led us, there were moats, and draw gates, there were wild animals, there were the ruins of a house which was fitting place for the grave of fire flies, there was a road nobody ever trod on, there were trees that had taught soda how to crackle, there was the serene river softly soaking and dissolving the moon, there were the talking trees of the middle earth, a concert by Pink Floyd, the float of Aberbrothok which guided Pam Pam when he talked to his girl friend on the phone, and a million billion things which I can say about my Terabithia.

But to ensure that you do not intrude, let me tell you that the place is dangerous, where you can get mugged very very easily, and which is an excellent place for committing you-know-what. Visit at your own risk.

And, needless to say, its far away.

Sorry, I forgot, for you, probably, that is enough to keep you away. :P

~~
musically_ut

Life, cricket and death.

2007-03-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Bob Woolmer died in a hotel,
Perhaps liked Irish until then,
A cricket match sealed his fate.

Is something overrated?

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest....?

2007-02-12T09:53:00.001-08:00

We (utkarsh and I) have often, during the long time we've been with each other, marvelled together at the seeming non-existence of any, any limit, to human stupidity. That does put us in the same league as Einstein (I'm sure you already know what he said, the less informed may read it here), may be, but we know we are apt examples of the fact ourselves.. :)

So i decided to share this article about a theft in New Zealand, with our readers. Do read it, and marvel yourself. Woah, there's something in it for anti-Microsoft people ("we don't hate Microsoft! We just prefer open-source!") as well! Learn how to protect privacy from them, and never mind the limits to stupidity. It doesn't exist!

P.S. -
Hey open-source-guys, didn't mean to offend you ;)
oh well, may be i did...

- for you, aRKade.

2007-02-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

'Off-ense' of Humor

Well one of the side effects of being a science student is that some such people inadvertently lose a very basic part of their sense of humor off and on, as if suffering from fits. Take this as an example.

The other day I came across the Parkinson's Law. Just in case you don't know, it is yet another law in the league of Murphy's law and equally delightful, and true. Being a human, and thus in some part, an altruist, I was bent on sharing it with a friend of mine who happens to be at the receiving end of this post. This is the way the dialog went:

Rohit Nagpal (my not-so-fortunate friend) was busy with a question while suckling a pen when I suddenly sallied him.

"Hey Rohit. listen to this. Do you know about the Parkinson's law?"

He gives me a rabbit like dreamy look and then turning his attention back to the problem muttered:

"Is it an extension built on any of the Thermodynamic laws?"

Undeterred, I recited "Parkinson's law states that any work always expands so as to fill all the time alloted for its completion." following which I desperately brightened my eyes, made my grin conspicuously wide and gave him every hint humanely possible that he was supposed to laugh. He lifted his eyes and squinted them hard, and exclaimed, "What?"

That came as a surprise. "Umm... Parkinson's law states that any work always expands so as to fill all the time alloted for its completion..."

The same stare into space and bewildered look.

"It means that if you have to do something and have a deadline to meet, then the work continues at least to the very end."

"Oh... that.... (a hardly noticeable forced chuckle) ... I was .... (a more natural giggle) .... You know, you should warn people before telling jokes."

"Huh...?"

"Well, to tell the truth, when you told me about the law, I thought that Work does not expand, it is Volume that expands and then ΔW*Δt ... (blah ... blah) ... and ... (blah .. blah) .."

;)

Musically yours,
Ut.

2007-01-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

Getting caught...

Well, it always is an interesting thing to think about the crimes one could have committed and gotten away with. However, thinking the number of ways we could get caught when innocuous is not an activity that grants us equal amounts of pleasure. I think that is the reason why we don't do it all that often. The aftermath follows...

Kunal Singhal, and I were short of a CRO (Cathode Ray Oscilloscope) for the E-Club to work on a small project for the IITB TechFest. So we thought we will work in the Electronics Lab while it is free. When we asked Dr. Mazahri for a slot where we could work in the labs, he had a more radical idea of sorts which was lending us a CRO form the lab. Now we had absolutely no reason why we would not want that, you know, in accordance to the 'Dopeler' effect (the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly -- Terry B. Jones) . After all, working in the club admits to odd working hours as well as a more homely feel. How much that adds to the productivity is a debatable issue, which none of us thought worthy of bringing up at the right moments. :)

We went into the lab, tested a CRO which had been discarded, happily took it, and started walking back to our hostels. We talked about the reservations concession forms for the whole IITK contingent going to Bombay. We had taken up the responsibility of getting them verified, and were carrying them and the related documents along. It was quite a sight seeing Kunal ludicrously managing the CRO and me walking alongside (ahem) laughing at him while both of us intermittently having "moments of epiphanies" when we suddenly thought of a brand new unexplored way of laying off responsibilities.

Somehow we got to the gate of the academic area. And then lo...

The guard noticed us carrying "something" which he was sure we did not bring 'in' as had we brought it, then he, or someone else, would have noticed it and informed him. He waited understandingly for a long while as we slowly approached him. He stopped us and asked for a gate pass. Unfortunately, we did not have one. In fact, we were not even aware of its existence in the abstract world of ideas; this being the first time we were taking something out which we could not conceal from the guard. Well, when we disclosed the same to him, I still think I noticed a knowing wink in his eyes, which somehow did not seem to be the best of the reactions in the present situation. Was he thinking we were pilferers? He immediately asked for our ID cards and then it happened...

I opened my bag. I took out a brown bag. I surreptitiously stole a look at Kunal. Kunal raised his eyebrows while the sides of his lips twitched into a hardly perceptible smile. And then I took out the contents of the bag.

First came a wad of notes... Rs. 16,500 in all. The guard looked interested...

Then came the ID Cards. Thirty five in number. The furrows on the guard's forehead deepened a bit and a chuckle almost escaped Kunal. I continued as if nothing odd had happened and started searching for Kunal's and my ID card. The guard waited for a while, took a look at the money, then me, then ID cards, then Kunal, then the CRO and then, shaking his head in resignation, called the security office ....

;-)

--
Musically yours,
Ut.

2006-12-30T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hi there.

We would like to begin our blog with an apt description of ourselves. Oh, did we say ourselves? We meant our sense of humor.

You know the Freudians keep quoting their reverend, "You tell me what a person laughs at, and I'll tell you what he is." So we think the last glitch will qualify as a Freudian slip too.

Anyways, we were reading through a question paper for the end semester exam here and found a rather interesting question which amused us greatly.

It went like this (We have purposefully not provided the whole question out of the fear of violating some institute policies):

A DC motor is such that its friction with its rotational speed is given by
(blah,blah).
And similarly for another motor the behavior is (more blah,blah).
Hence, calculate the efficiencies of both the engines.

And this was the interesting bit, which incidentally was present at the end of every question (it, after all, was a seventh sem end semester paper):

Also if you were to recommend a motor to your company, which one would you recommend.

So far, so good.
Then it was the marks distribution which caught our eye:

(9+1)

Hmm.. now if someone solved the question rigorously, got the right answer and then ... recommend the wrong motor to the company. Hmm... he will certainly make an interesting engineer with great marks. :)

--
Musically and playfully yours,
Us