1. God loves you. He loves the world. Even if you do a thousand sins, he won’t demolish the earth. Any speculation of doomsday and apocalypse due to his anger is pure bullshit. No one wants to destroy what they built. If any disaster happens on this planet, it is because such a disaster can happen. Murphy rules them all.
2. God loves you. You don’t need to fear him. Remember the religious books? — God forgives. Now stop fearing God and live your life peacefully.
3. You think that you committed some grave sin and God will forgive you. Now since you know God will forgive you, so you go on committing more sins. See what you have done? Created a chicken-egg problem. You idiot!
4. If you goto God only when in times of need, you better need to introspect yourself. You love God just because you need something from him. Is this what religion is meant for?
5. When God sent you on this planet, he expected some minimum output from you. This output actually includes living you life, crying like a baby to make others say “choo chweet”, becoming a good human being, making love, raising your children, doing humanitarian services and all those good things taught in Moral Science books. No where did he say to give up the normal life and worship him day and night. Get up and serve the society. God would be more pleased.
6. Going to place of worship won’t make God as happy as much as you think. He would be more happy if you spread peace and humanity all around. Hey! Leave God for a while. Doing these would even make you happy.
7. Who on this planet can ever think that offering sacrifice to Gods makes them happy? I mean sacrifices like Animal Sacrifice or even Human Sacrifice. Urgghh! You are committing a ghastly crime right front of his eyes. You really need to rot in hell. He never likes to see his creations butchered by narrow-minded people like you.

If you were following me on Twitter or Facebook, you might have been overwhelmed with the massive influx of messages/tweets which had only one intention - Explaining how much I love Manipal.

I had been to Manipal for three days for my University Convocation which was on 2nd of November. This day being a weekday instead of Saturday can be held responsible for a bit poor turnout of this great event. I reached Manipal on Sunday morning and left on Tuesday night.

Sunday

Reached Manipal at 10:30AM in the morning. The bus was unusually late and I was dead tired. When I stepped out of the bus, I could feel the real heat which we had been bitching for the last four years. It was really too hot especially after spending 4 months in Bangalore where the weather is excellent, or say PERFECT!

Getting down the bus, I went to the college hostel which one of my friend had booked for us. The hostel was 14C(MIT Hostels) which is probably situation in the valley.  Going up in the heart of the campus needs some serious exercise as the 15th floor of this block is at the same height as the ground floor of the hostels in the heart of the campus.

After getting fresh, we(Gaurav, me and Atul) left for lunch at Dollops. We were in no mood to miss the finger-licking chicken lollipop. After finished the lunch, we went to college to get ourselves registered for the convocation.

The real fun was at night. Nearly 95% of the crowd who came to Manipal for convo headed for DT. The place was full and for those few hours, it looked like this place was the most happening place in the world. People were enjoying at their max, all beautiful chicks the place was filled with smoke. We all reached back Hostel by 2 in the night

Monday

I got up quite early in the morning, went to the college to get the convocation gown. I was shocked to know that the college had so-so many gowns which can be given to most of the students who came for this event. After getting all the required, we all 3 headed to China Valley, which is another restaurant which I had never missed whenever I got a chance in my engineering. After having delicious food, we all returned back to hostel. The big event needs big preparations.

Everyone I could see was running here and there, getting formals, shoes polished, ties and what not? Everyone wanted to look as smart as possible. It looked like a formal fashion show. We took our gowns in our hands to wear it at the event itself. At evening, reached KMC Greens on time. The venue was well lit up and looked more like a traditional Indian marriage. All of us who had registered had been allocated a seat for the time other’s were receiving degrees.

The Convocation started with Kasturba Medical College and ended with MIT. I was really thrilled when I got a chance to come on the stage and was handed  over the degree. It is a prized possession. After the distribution of degrees, we headed over to Manipal University campus where dinner was arranged for all of us. After dinner, the only place I could think was again -DT. The Mecca of Manipal. Even though it was jam packed as usual, I along with some of my friends managed to find a place with other friends who were already camping for an hour. The experience that day is difficult to explain. All I can say is that we somehow managed to return back to hostel by 2:30AM.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I got up early. I have a younger cousin studying at Manipal in 2nd year Mechanical. Called him up and asked him to come for lunch. We both went to Saiba, the place which I was not able to visit for last 2 days. We had a normal lunch as opposed to my heavy one. By that time I came to know that all the photos were being transferred by Aavik. I missed no second and went to this room to collect all the snaps from different sources.

Around 4PM, I called up Akshay and asked all the LUG guys to assemble in CCD for a get-together. The people who finally turned up were - Ankur, Djays, Anomit, Sameer, Akshay, Ujjwal, Tushar, Shashank. We had discussions ranging from latest breakthroughs to technology to where Manipal is heading to. This exhaustive session lasted 2 hours.

The day was drawing to a close. I had to catch a bus back to Bangalore. All I could take back to Bangalore were memories. This place gave me so many things. So many good friends. Miss you all! Miss you Manipal

Flickr set

Yesterday at office we had Diwali celebrations organised by the HR department. The topics were Fancy Dress Competitive and Cubicle Decoration. I won’t waste time, but show you some snaps which I took from my mobile camera. Apologies, it is just 3.2 megapixels.

Cubicle Decoration

Admin Department

The Admin Department came up with their own decoration

Fancy Dress Competition

This is a group pic of all the participants

You want to know who is the winner and why? Watch the video below. Have no hard feelings, the performance was awesome and mind blowing. Lower the volume of your speaker before hitting Play.

Remember the good old days when having a fixed-line phone was considered a status symbol? This was also called a basic-phone or a land-line or a PNT. I still have the image of those old-age phones in my memory.

The first time I saw those phones were when my grandmother applied for a connection. That phone was a big rock like device where you had to revolve the dialler till the end to dial someone’s number. If I compare them with the present generation basic phones, they look quite cumbersome. Inspite of looking ridiculous in this age, they did their job well as per the technology limitations. Probably after 10 years the present generation basic phones would look like a silly device.

Call Rates

There was a time when calling someone over 1500kms (or 2000kms) costed Rs 24! No, that is not a typo. I still remember the tariff rates to some extent.  Local calls were Rs 1.20 for 3 mins and STD went upto Rs24. Suddenly one fine day in January - (January 14th to be precise) I saw a big advertisement from BSNL. Tariffs have been slashed. The upmost limit was just some Rs8 (approx). The advert had big letters saying - Upto 66.67% tarrif slash. It is a gift from BSNL on occasion of Makar Sankranti.

Previous and Present Situation

If you hear from most of the people these days, mobile is the most preferred form of phone. It’s portable and there are a lot of private players. You have a choice to choose between the options and most important of them - No running from pillar to pillar getting a line repaired. Attribute it a bit to BSNL Linemen too. If your phone died (no ring tone), then you probably need to take a leave from work, goto BSNL office, stand in an infinitely long queue and submit the complaint. They might take their own time and move the complaint at a snail’s pace. Till the time your phone is back again, you would have given up the hope. I admit, the experiences may be different in different parts of the country, but hardly anyone had a pleasant one.

Private Players

There have been a few private players in fixed-line phone market for personal use, but none of them have made much news. Two of the most famous are Tata Indicom and Reliance. I have used the Reliance one only to find that is is actually wireless and uses an antenna to communicate with the closest station. Obviously Reliance wanted to avoid the hassles of laying down cables all of the country when they knew that the real money is in consumer mobiles and not home fixed-line phones. I do have a BSNL fixed-line phone at my home-town which is used for Internet connection and for emergency incoming calls.

Conclusion

The mobile market is the biggest, fastest growing part of the Telecom industry. In my family we have a BSNL fixed-line phone. My mother and father have BSNL Excel pre-paid (which they took long back), my brother has Airtel and I have Idea and Aircel. I had never ever imagined that there would once be a time when we 4 ppl together would be having 6 phone numbers!!

The electricity demands of this globe is rising steeply. If adequate care isn’t taken, the power availability would worsen in coming years. So you have some ground-breaking innovative ideas for saving electricity? Here is a chance for you - Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge 2009.

Schneider Electric, one of the world’s power giant announces Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge with the theme Energy Efficiency. Come up with thought-provoking ideas and submit your proposal at the earliest.

Schneider Electric Innovation Challenge 2009 Website

Topics

The topics for this years’s challenge are:

1. Power Monitoring System for Houses
2. Constructive re-use of waste energy
3. Intelligent Sensors
4. Efficient electrical distribution
5. Power consumption by computers connected on a network

If you want the exhaustive explanation of the above topics, please check here

Evaluation Criteria

The papers will then be evaluated on the following terms by an internal panel

• Innovation
• Practical application of the solution
• Attention to detail in presenting the concept
• Backing up the solution with factual details
• Teamwork

Team and Team Member Eligibility

Student teams can consist of a maximum of 4 members. All team members must be full-time and bonafide active students registered at participating institutions/universities during the entire period of the competition. The contest is open to under-graduates of all engineering streams.

Got more doubts? Check the FAQ Section

Format of the Paper

• Title
• Abstract: Brief overview
• Concept: The idea behind the paper
• Application: The effectiveness of the solution
• Innovation: What has not been done before
• Conclusion: Benefits of the solution
• Bibliography and Appendix.

Download the format (.doc)

Prize Amount

First Place: Rs. 1,00,000
Second Place: Rs. 75,000
Third Place: Rs. 50,000

Submissions and Contact

Last Date for Submission: 21st October

10 selected teams will be invited for a presentation to Bangalore at our R&D facility

After missing the chance to attend PyCon India due to some unavoidable reasons, I was just hunting for a place to enjoy (read fool around).  All the day I was at my cousin’s and relatives house and during the evening I called up my elder sister asking her whether she is going for watching Durga Puja. Out of two options - Ulsoor and Koramangala, I opted for the latter.

She came to Marathahalli bridge in her car and I got in. After that I have absolutely no idea which left-right turn she took. I know the route via Ring Road is it is the way all the buses go. Heh! Cars don’t havt that restriction. After taking hundred or left and right turns just to escape the traffic, we reached Koramagala 5th Block (as I heard) where Durga Puja was being celebrated.

The next problem was to park the car. Looked like each and  every person in Bangalore has come down on this auspicious day. After braving the traffic and taking a few more turns inside the colony, there was a place to park the car. Done!

We all 7 people including 2 kids (thankfully they were sweet and silent) entered the premises of the community hall. A lot of food stalls were put up. We first went inside which was less crowded than the food stalls. Everyone was blessed by the diety herself and then we came out for the next mission.

Is it really a crowd or the worshippers were too hungry?

A more close up view

Sometimes, if you have a huge apetite, you would be delighted after having a look at the varieties of stalls. I had corn, pani puri, veg rolls, ice cream, dhokla, rosogulla, cutlet, diet coke and what not. The celebrations was itself blessed by the King of Good Times. Obviously, the Durga Puja celebrations were sponsored by beer.

Durga Puja blessed by the King of Good Times

If I say that most of the News channels in India suck to the core, probably everyone would agree. After watching the most crappiest news, I can safely conclude that IndiaTV sucks giant donkey balls. Yesterday was that memorable day when I exclaimed “this is called news?”.

Probably IndiaTV is trying to give a humour touch to their reporting or trying to be like “The Onion” or Cracked. Ah! They should be removed from the category of News and put in entertainment. Yesterday I was at my friend’s flat where they were watching some match and during the break, his friend switched to this epic TV. Everything is live and breaking for them.

There is even a dedicated blog to rip apart their activities.

The photos are taken from a Television set using phone’s camera. The quality may be not upto the mark.

Photos

Slideshow

If you are a fresher who just graduated from college and started working, you are bound to face problems. Some of them may be due to new environment, social environment etc which are not related directly to your work. There are another kind of problem which you can face due to the project you are put into.

You can run into these various troubles right from the start date of your employment and even during your project period when you are basically kept under a mentor. I thought about it for the last week. Lemme summerize them:

1) Requirements keep changing everyday (bad)

Horrible! Today you are told to use in-memory XML parser and the next day you are told to use SAX. Probably it can again change the very next day.

2) New requirements are added as last moment surprises (worse)

If changing requirements were not enough, addition of requirements right in middle of project or at the end can upset your whole planning or even career.

3) Incomplete requirement specification (pity)

The person who is in charge of the project doesn’t give you the full specs of the project and makes demands to add functionality right in between the development process (check pt 2)

4) Team Lead has attitude problems (happens sometimes)

This happens if your team lead thinks that your knowledge is nothing in front of him. Or if he is oversmart!

5) You are looked down if you are not working overtime (shocks)

It is very common in India to work overtime without a pay. If your lead/manager takes it for granted, then you are in deep trouble.

6) The person who looks over the project shouts and screams regularly

This can surely make you sick.

7) Your team lead says “later” when you are stuck up

Nothing new. They might even shout at you if they belong to people like pt 4

Final Word

• Just think if you ever faced all of these problems at once. I pray to god that you are still sane. As my cousins working in different companies give me the feedback, I can conclude that these are true. They have faced atleast one of these problem.
• If you are thinking it is a rant, then lemme make it clear — It isn’t so. My present employer(esp my team) is very good when it comes to work environment. I havn’t faced a single problem till now. My Project mentor,Technical mentor and Team Lead are a gem of a person. They are multi-talented. They have never ever been angry on me, nor ever made a frowning face even though I have made a lot of mistakes.
• Now if you are thinking that I am ranting against my previous employer, you are still wrong.

Finally you can be kicked out that you did not perform as per their expectations even though you faced all the problems.

Guess what? The Indian politicians showed that not only are they corrupt, but also lacking wits. Our Shashi Tharoor made a small tweet (yeah max 140 chars are allowed) about the cattle class. He was asked - ‘Tell us Minister, next time you travel to Kerala, will it be cattle class?‘. His witty reply was - ‘‘Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!“.

Now I am dying to see what was wrong in his tweet. It was sheer wit. I can’t expect other illiterate politicians to attain this level. Yeah, douchebags like Ashok Gehlot surely make noise and ask for resignation. Actually Shashi was correct when he used the term - cattle class. Our politicians need to go in economy class and have a look at the situation. Sleeper and Second class sitting of any train are no better than what Shashi actually described as. The situation of Second Class is really really pathetic. Someone teach they “Holy Cows” isn’t to be taken literally.

Politicians need a month training on English. The million dollar question is can someone teach them how to be witty?

We, the cattle class

If our caring politicians like Ashok Gehlot really think we are offended, they should leave their AC cars and travel by those stuffed buses, travel in Sleeper classes instead of 2nd AC Air. It’s nice to see that people on twitter have hailed his remark and stand in support.

Expert speaks

Meanwhile CNN-IBN ran a discussion panels, put up a snapshot on their article and gave a really confusing caption.

Looks like my English is just too weak

The Heritage

Looks like Idiocy is a national heritage. While writing this post on a Tata Indicom Broadband connection, I got a call from Tata Indicom itself asking whether I need their Broadband connection?

Today during lunch some of my friends said that they are vegetarians because they don’t want to kill animals for their food. We, the non-vegetarians defended themselves with this logic:

ecocycle2

Maintaing the ecological balance