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Sunday, February 26, 2006

People are like ... crazy man !!!

While doing some webdev work today, I wanted to know what are the best methods to get rounded edges on layers, images etc ...

I know I am not very brilliant googling (it generally takes me some effort before I can zoom into the stuff I was looking for) but I was shocked beyond belief today.

I use firefox (which rocks by the way) and it has the google search bar with the auto completion feature turned on.
( for those who don't know, the google auto completion feature is something which fills in your search query by the most popular queries which other users have used - it is quite helpful when your brain is not working and you need to get a proper query in)

So, I start by query with "methods of ..." and before I could type further, the list gets filled up with suggestions.

(my actual query was : methods of getting round edges using CSS)

But these are things which google filled up:

methods of suicide - 3,410,000 results
methods of abortion - 1,210,000 results
methods of execution - 5,370,000 results
methods of mayhem - 29,000 results
methods of torture - 1,450,000 results
I mean - what the hell are people searching for?
There was an actual page in the "methods of suicide" search result which would be about 40 pages in printed pages - which talked about all the methods of killing yourself, along with tips, tricks and also an advice column.

Freak ... some people are just plain crazy (which is an understatement - it should be more like retarded !!!)


Please dont read the links above and kill yourself - not that I care much, but I don't have time to attend funerals :p
Hehehe ...

And if you're still wondering if you can get rounded edges in CSS, it will be supported in CSS3 - which does not have a proper spec - so will have to wait a while.
Till then, images are the only way to go ...

Monday, February 20, 2006

Education thingy ...

This semester, the college attendance for our class has been pretty low.
On a good day, the class attendance has been about 60% at best.

I think this stems from the fact, that nothing much is happening in college, we have crappy subjects and people are basically bored having attended the last 3 and a half years of their lives coming everyday to college -- so they want to cut it short.

Not to mention project work !!

Besides, we have only 4 subjects this semester and our time table has been put up in such a way - that we have Thursdays off for project work and then again Saturday and Sunday (which is normal college holiday too) - so we're basically working only 4 days a week.

On top of that, we have no practicals on Friday - which makes it the juicy day to bunk on - something I did this friday - with disastrous effects.

It turns out, that more than half the class had the same idea which resulted in the only the other half turning up for class which eventually resulted in a very, very *angry* (read pissed off) Head of the Department.

So in order to get us back on track, there was a long lecture (I heard about it via many people who actually were present) and we're having a test tomorrow on 2 chapters -- in which, if we score less than 75% (which is again a pretty impossible result to achieve), we will be chucked out of the class.

Also, there were a lot of warnings about us getting very, very poor grades in our projects (which make up a good 150 marks) and term work if we didn't attend sincerely enough.
Warnings also on "how what we do for projects does not matter", as the marks eventually come from the internal and external examiner - whose good books we need to be in.

Using this logic, people who spend more time doing credible and decent work (and who happen to miss classes due to this reason) will end up getting less marks than other people who come up with some half baked projects BUT attend sincerely.

So, why should we bother at all?
As sad as it seems, this is how most of the places work - I think.
You need to suck up to the higher authorities to get anything done at all.

Luckily in our case, this fact has just been more "explicitly" mentioned.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Reports from a Bank ...

I don't know how many people will agree with me, but ICICI banks, generally, suck !

All the money they spend on the Amitabh Bachan ads and the stupid "Bharosa hai" campaign could be put to better use, buying some sense for the people running the bank.

My dad and grandfather both have an account at the Shangrila Garden ICICI branch which is quite near my college - and to my great misery as well.
The proximity of the bank to my college, accounts for my gzillion trips to the bank - mostly to deposit cheques and stuff.

These guys have installed a cheque accepting machine, which, hardly anyone knows how to use - and most people are afraid, would eat up their cheques.
If you want to withdraw money, you probably have to wait in line for 20 minutes atleast during anytime of the day - at the ATM adjacent to the bank - which most probably is out of cash and is being refuelled.

Many times, I've had to deal with their not so helpful employees who'd give you the "Oh - why the hell did you ever be born" look everytime I made a minor mistake filling out a form or something.

Once, they refused to make me a demand draft to pay my fees ( which I had to do in about 4 hours time ) because apparently, their central server was down.

So, basically, ICICI is one of the banks in my "I will not bank here off my free will" list and atleast for the time being, plan to keep it there.

So, today, to my awesome luck - I was to go and deposit a couple of cheques ( 4 actually ) in the bank.
I was already late for my first lecture at 8, so I decided to bunk it and go and deposit the cheques first. ( the bank opens at 8 am )

So, I enter the bank at 8:30 - and I learn that I cannot use the machine to deposit the cheques and I need to do it the old fashioned way off the counter.
Then to my surprise, I learn that they have changed the system and I now need to take a token to even do that ...
Agony !!!

Anyways, I do that and wait .... and wait ... and wait ...
With about 10 minutes left for my next lecture and still about 20 guys in front of me at 8:50 in the morning, I throw my token in the bin and decide to come back later.

Fast forward to 1:15 pm
I enter the bank again - and it seems like the entire population of Pune had decided to bank at the same time.

There is total chaos at the bank - with about gzillion people running about, with no place for a guy like me with his big college bag to even stand.
I knew I had it !

Luckily, the token generating machine crashed - and all the token numbers of the gzillion people there got mixed up.
When I went to get my token - the guard asked me to just go directly and give the cheques to the person at the counter.

There was a line out there - surprisingly consisting of only 5 people. I blessed the guard for having some sense and headed for the counter.

Now here is where the surprises start.
The female at counter number 5 - inspite of all the chaos and rush and madness was pretty chilled out.
She was actually genuinely smiling and thanking all the people for banking there.
She actually apologized when she asked another female to fill out another form which the other female herself had screwed up!
Hmm ...

When my turn came - I gave her the entire pile of 4 cheques - she flipped through them - and found that the last cheque slip did not have my dad's cell phone number.
The horror !
At other times, I would have gotten a look from the employee which would make me want to kill myself and everyone else in the room - but this time, this person at the other end of the counter, just smiled - and said "Sir, all the cheques will go separately - so you need to fill the cell phone numbers on all the slips."

I was dumbstruck! I just took the slip, filled it up, and returned it back to her which she promptly stamped and returned the counterfoil back to me.

I slowly made my way out of the maddening crowds - the counterfoils in my hand - wondering what was going on ...
Maybe ICICI got some employee etiquette program going on - or maybe she was just a nice person.
Anyways, need more such service around.

Even though I still don't approve of ICICI, just want to give credit where it is due ...
So there ...

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Life on track ...

I haven't been blogging of late - have not had much time.

The last couple of weeks have gone in a blur actually. I was actively involved in organising our inter collegiate festival - and it was a mad rush of things ...

One thing that I learnt after the event got over was - to never organise anything like this ever again. Its very very painful.

However, the event went off decently well - and most of the people were happy at the end of it.

However, this saturday - the last day of the event, all our sponsor banners disappeared from the parking in broad daylight - due to which, this event hasn't gotten over - yet.

These things just never end.
Anyways, now that most of the thing is over and I have more free time, will be blogging more often.