Nitpickings with Pune ...

I've lived in Pune all my life, and to tell you honestly, I wouldn't probably want to live anywhere else ...
But of late, there have been a few things, really hurting, which I wanted to yell about.

I don't know if this is happening in other parts of the country, but it shouldn't generally happen anywhere at all.
Anyways, here are a few things which really hurt and I have no idea how I could help to fix.

1. Pathetic Roads
When the it rained recently, all the roads got completely damaged.
I mean - the roads were so bad, and nothing was being done about them ... that someone actually came up with an online petition which was the number 1 active online petition till some weeks ago.

Even now, the roads are pretty bad and if you get out of your house, you are sure to face the brunt.

There is a road behind residency club ( which I have also written previously about ) in which people come to one of the ends.
Stop their bikes or cars, get off, observe the stretch, go back to their bikes / cars, turn around and take the longer route.
The Pune Police has actually barricaded the stretch of road to deter adventurous people from venturing there.

It's already a month since the last of the rains and still most of the roads have not been fixed. Going at more than 40 km/hr for more than 2 min at a stretch is next to impossible and even trying to go above 50 km/hr anywhere is plain suicidal.

2. The Public Transportation System
In Pune, this equals to nothing but the PMT ( Pune Municipal Transport ) buses.
Everytime I go to college in the morning and see the scores of hapless people waiting at the bus stop, and hundreds of people hanging out of the bus, I thank my stars that I have a bike and don't have to depend on the crappy system.

Everytime I see people hanging from the buses, and by hanging I mean - atleast 7 people hanging from the bus, I feel this blinding rage at the apathy of the PMT and PMC.

The true story goes that, sometime ago, there were the six seater rickshaws which would ply through most of Pune.
They were not allowed to move in as many places as the PMT buses were, but they covered a major chunk of Pune.
Of course, they were rash drivers and would stuff 8 people in places meant for 6 ... but they were a blessing.
You could walk out of your house and be certain of catching a six seater within 5 minutes.
They stopped everywhere, and their sheer frequency was such a boon.

Anyways, naturally people preferred them, rather than waiting for the buses.
So, PMT went into loses and they got an order passed via the PMC, banishing the six seaters to the outskirts of Pune.
Their reason - six seaters cause too much pollution.

Later, more buses were promised ...
But I think its almost 5 years now, and nothing has changed except the number of commuters.

All the people who switched over to using the public transportation system ( six seaters ) were stranded.
It's so sad and pathetic.

The government creating a monopoly in a market which it itself does not have the resources to satisfy the basic needs.

3. Power Crisis
I have noticed this huge crisis cropping up ever since the congress government came into power.
There hasn't been a single day where you had 24 hours of pure unadultrated power ( electricity ).

And on top of this, the government has the audacity to offer free power to farmers.
The farmers, naturally happy at the offer, elected these people, and are now suffering the most.

All villages around Pune undergo 9 hours of power cuts everyday.
And as all election promises go, the free power deal was eventually cut off ...

On top of this, the maximum revenues of the MSEB come from Pune and it has always gotten step motherly treatment.
With hundreds of BPOs and software companies and industries in and around Pune, needing to manage power themselves for 3 - 4 hours daily, who in their right mind would want to come here ?

4. Fuel Stations
There should be a rule made in the constitution, which makes it illegal for fuel stations to go on strikes.
It has just been happening too frequently off late here.

These people know that they can hold an entire city to ransom, just by going on an indefinite strike.

The latest thing which happened just yesterday is just short of a joke.
The Fuel distribution centers went on an indefinite strike ( which has now been called off ) because they did not want the Oil companies coming and checking the purity of the fuel they were serving.

Their argument being that the oil companies themselves send them adultrated fuel and come later to check it themselves.
What utter crass !

========================
I don't know, but I sincerely hope something is done.
Sell off the PMT, sell off BSNL, sell off MSEB, sell off everything that makes any difference to the life of the general populous to private companies.
Though I doubt anyone stupid enough to actually buy any of these.
Privatisation, it seems might be the only way out ...

You don't see Mumbai undergoing load shedding of 2 hours daily ... do you ?

A different beat ...

Oral exams or vivas have always been a pain in the rear end ...
And this time, all the timings been missed up ...

We had one AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) Viva yesterday and have another one ( Computer Networks ) tomorrow ... on a Sunday !

Apparently, all the external examiners that come to take orals for BE students are people with jobs - working in companies.

The AI orals, was basically not worth the 3 day effort of cramming the utterly useless Rich and Knigt book.
The people who wrote it should be tied to a pole and stoned ( or booked in this case ) with their own book.
And the people who recommend it to hapless students as 'Good Reading Material' should be tied next, and again stoned with the same book - twice over !
No matter how much I tried, could not get stuff into my head from that book.
It was a frikkin discussion, with 18th century english and language so complex, that would put Ayn Rand to shame.

Fed up, last day, picked up the AI local author textbook and went through it from page to page.
Yeah ... the language was really sucky, and in the end, lots of stuff didnt make sense, but then the satisfaction of having read an entire book is nice :)
Gives you that placebo effect.

Anyways, the external examiner ( bless his heart ) was one of the chillest dudes I have come across sitting on the other side of the table, and everything went off perfectly, awesomely well ...
I had friends gushing "He's so cool ya ..." all over the place :)

Now, tomorrow, on a Sunday, have to haul my ass all the way to college for the Computer Networks Orals, which many people are predicting will be doomsday for most of us.
Again, some person from the 'Industry' is going to pay us a visit and probably, take our case.
Make sure his wasted Sunday holiday is well spent ... eheheh :)

In contrast to that very crappy Rich and Knight book, we have an excellently written network book by Tanenbaum.
Now, this fellow can write ... and very well at that.
The book is peppered with all these interesting anecdotes and examples, which make all the boring stuff network stuff - more interesting ...

But lifes not fair, and we dont have much time.
So, even though I'd have loved reading the entire book - no time.

So, have to sit with the text book on one hand, and make sure to read ONLY the boring part.
Sooo ... anyways, me sitting here blogging with less than 18 hours to go for doomsday, I have kinda given up ...

Watch this space for more news from the grave :)

Painting

Painting
Originally uploaded by saurabhj.

Because the previous place where I posted the image went offline, and Blogger is somehow not allowing me to upload this, I have put it up on flickr and linking it back here...

Take that Bravenet and Blogger ! :)

Some painting ...

Just tried my hand at this new form of art ... err ... yeah .. art ... :)

Did some good old mouse painting and then touched it up with flower and bubbles and other kinds of objects ...

Now, to get back to studying AI :(

[ Please see above post for picture ]

Ad - Sense ...

Wanted to talk about this topic since ages ... but never actually got the chance ...
Anyways, now that I am totally useless with nothing better to do, wanted to take this up ...

Ads ... hmm ...
You get all kinds of them ...
And ad making is not easy ...

Imagine getting your message across in less than 15 seconds ... something experienced speakers cant do in hours of speech.
It is an art ...

How many times have you seen an ad, and gone
"Woah ... Who ever thought of that must be God Damn brilliant !"

I do all the time ...

The only thing going on in India, which we can probably compare on a world level - if you really think of it, are the ad agencies ...

Ofcourse, we have all these crappy, utterly disgusting ads, which make you wanna run to the sink and puke ...
Like all those Fair and Lovely ads ...
I really hate them !
Apart from promoting low self esteem and making women believe that no one will marry you, if you are not fair, they come up with such utter crap like the one in which a mom and her daughter keep showing 5 fingers to each other signifying that a new sachet costs only 5 bucks.
Aaaarghhh !!!
That pissing off ad ran for so long, that I swear, I could have strangled the guy who made it if I ever saw him on the streets ...

And now, that they get a person like Shehnaz Hussain in the ad, who looks absolutely - horrific, their ads have reached an all new low.
I guess she looks like that due to trying out all her products on herself first ...

Anyways, I dont want to talk about all these "crap, waste of air space ads" ...
I want to talk about those extremely slick ones doing the rounds nowadays ... which give you that big grin on your face and that "woah !" feeling ...

I really, really, really love the Tata Safari Dicor ad - the one which reads "Reclaim your life"
The "I always wanted to quit on Monday mornings" line, then the guy in the suit standing alone as the sea of humanity passes him by....
The "I always wanted to ride the waves" line, and then finally the car jumping out with the musical cresendo in the background is just so brilliant !!!
These guys got everything just perfect ... and I just cant get enough of it ...

Come to think of it, Safari has always had very nice ads.
Remember the one with the Canoeing and the "Make your own roads" punchline ?
That was very cool for its time ...

The other really good ad doing the rounds nowadays is the Bajaj Avenger - "Feel like God" ad.
That is also brilliantly done ... just loved it ...
The punchline comes so very nicely in the end, that you cant help grinning everytime you see that ad ...

Another product, which sometime ago had excellent ads, but now they mostly suck is Pepsi.
At one particular point of time, all their ads were brilliant.
The Sumo soccer players one and then the one in which the sky diver feeds the birds some pepsi, were really good ones.
I remember skipping through channels just to catch the Sumo Wrestler ad when it was first aired.

Can't remember it properly now, but wasn't one of their first Indian ads - one in which Aishwarya Rai ( before she became Miss World ) asks Amir Khan for a pepsi, and he jumps around, hopping from one bus to another finally manages to get her one ?
Now, both of them have switched to Coca Cola ... :p

Coca Cola, in comparison, always had bad ads ...
They weren't any smart, but always piggybacked on the star power of Amir Khan and whichever people they could hire ...
Their only catchy ads were about the Amir Khan one in which he pulls out bottles of coke from the well ...

The only other cool ad which comes to mind, even though it gets bugging after a while was the close up one - "Kya aap close up karte hai ?" ad.
It was so different that it had to work.

And lastly, the Pulsar stunt ad, which these 2 bikers show off on Pulsars on a bridge was too slick to be an indian ad.
Very nicely done ...

One thing I would really want to do is be part of the creative team which comes up with the Safari or the Avenger or the Pulsar ads ...

So, incase you have unlimited resources, and are in need of a damn good ad idea, look me up :)
I shall be happy to provide you with my creative insights ...

Tribute to one of the best bands that ever was ...

I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy
I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold

I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

- Savage Garden, Affirmation, 1999

People changing the world ...

Very often, something happens that makes you stop in your tracks and thank God, for just being alive ...
It's the stories of people ... real people, standing up for what they believe in ...
No matter what it takes, and what sacrifices one needs to make in order to go to sleep at night thinking that he / she has done the right thing ...

One such story is of Gaurav Sabnis ... a name which people will remember for a long time to come.

What it takes for one man to stand against a large, corporate organisation, with fancy lawyers and in the end, come out on tops ...

Read the stories out here ... and please follow each of the links in order ...
And follow the relevant links inside each of the 4 posts ...

- Post 1
- Post 2
- Post 3
- Post 4

And the actual blog of Gaurav Sabnis here.

Kudos to you Gaurav.
It's people like you which make the world a place worth living ...

Guess its time to wake up and smell the coffee ...

This post comes in the wake of another natural disaster, of which, the total casualties have already gone into 5 digit figures as of today morning ...

Over the past few months, all that things that are making major news are the things that our planet is managing to churn out ever so frequently nowadays ..

Just recall events happening over the last few months ...
First it was the Tsunamis ... then it was the incessant rains in India, and the two hurricanes in the US. And now this ... the earthquake in Pakistan ...

I mean, we have no where to run, no where to hide ...
We are totally helpless ... at nature's mercy ... can't do anything at all ...
You can atmost, only save your life ... and that too only if you have been warned before hand ... which seldom happens ...

People are just dying ...
The tsunamis killed over 300,000
Hurricane Katrina had about 1200 dead and more than 2500 people missing and over a million displaced ...
Then there were the Mumbai rains which I had the privilege to experience first hand ...
More than 1000 people were killed and I think lacs displaced ...

And then finally, the Earthquake which happened some days ago has .. It has already clocked 30,000 and is still counting ...

It's just plain weird ...
Things have been changing rapidly since 2001 - 2002 ...

I guess our planet is a living, breathing entity ...
It responds in the same way we do ...

Some amount of bacteria and virii and germs we can tolerate ... but when they start to get really pissing, our defense mechanism kicks it ...
Most of the time, the cure lies in throwing out stuff from the system ... thats what the planet's doing I guess ...

This might all be non scientific, philosophical crap ...
But I am pretty sure, the root to all these things lies with man messing around with nature ...

The lives of millions of people have been permanently altered ... and there was nothing they could do about it ...
That was the saddest part ...
There was absolutely nothing they could do about it ...

The other theory of mine is that someone has come up with a weather altering device ...
Something a la 'Golden eye' or 'Under Siege 2' kind of thing ... and is plain screwing around ...
The ultimate weapon ...

But as the second possibility is quite remote and far fetched ... I feel we should probably take some initiative ourselves and do stuff which would make a wee bit of difference ... if not much ...

How about walking down to the corner store instead of taking your bike ...
Or .. how about taking a bike instead of taking your car when you're going somewhere in dry weather ?
What about car or bike pooling ?

Yeah ... stuff like that ... I guess ...

In the end,

PLEASE

Bloggers ...

We're an interesting breed ... aren't we ?
Bloggers ...

Even though I write a lot ( crap .. mostly ) ... I don't read much ..
So, the list of blogs that I read on the right pane might not be as elaborate as it would be for so many bloggers out there ...

But then again, I have been online from 11 tonight ... to now ... that is about 2:24 am ... wandering ... from one blog to another ... just reading ... and honestly, had a lot of fun doing that ... just reading ...

One really funny post that I visited for the easily the tenth time, and still enjoyed reading was : this

I suggest you check that out too ...
You won't be disappointed ...

Slaves to technology ...

Councillor Harmann: Down here, sometimes I think about all those people still plugged into the Matrix and when I look at these machines I... I can't help thinking that in a way... we are plugged into them.

Neo: But we control these machines; they don't control us.

Councillor Harmann: Of course not. How could they? The idea is pure nonsense. But... it does make one wonder... just... what is control?

Neo: If we wanted, we could shut these machines down.

Councillor Harmann: [Of] course. That's it. You hit it. That's control, isn't it? If we wanted we could smash them to bits. Although, if we did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air...

Neo: So we need machines and they need us, is that your point, Councilor?

Councillor Harmann: No. No point. Old men like me don't bother with making points. There's no point.

Neo: Is that why there are no young men on the council?

Councillor Harmann: Good point.

=============================================

Remember this conversation ?
If you have seen Matrix Reloaded, you probably have ... one of the very key points the movie makes ...

Just a few days ago ( 3 and a half to be precise ), my phone line .. from which I get my broadband, got dinked ...
And, this, as you must have guesses it, starved me out of my internet connection.

Now, I am NOT one of your classic nerds or geeks who cannot do without the internet ... I can ...
But somehow, not being able to access it, check email and stuff, made me restless ...

I could no longer ... just connect and google for something that I didnt understand ...
Didn't know how to do something ? Then was just stuck up there ...
Probably had to pick one of the reference books I had bought years ago and flip through the pages ...
In other words, I was plain paralysed ...

Life was not always like this ...
During my dial up days ( may they rest in peace ), when the prices would pinch the pocket, I could do without checking my mail 3 times a day ...
Whenever got stuck, would pull out some book and actually go through it ...

Just the other day was talking to one of my friends and we were discussing, how we no longer consider accessing the internet as a privelege ... or it being something cool ...
Its a way of life ...

And it confuses me and makes me wonder, how some students doing Engineering have no email account .. or most of them check emails like once in a year, which causes their accounts to expire.

Ignorance is bliss I guess ...
Once you get sucked into all this, it gets difficult to pull out ...

Technology makes life simpler for you ... but then once you have used it, addiction is imperative.
Also, depending on technology, so much, in a country like India, where the basic infrastructure is not strong enough to support technology ... is very dangerous ...

Like, I had to send a parcel to US the other day ... and went to the post office at 8 in the morning hoping to wrap it all up by 8:30
Of course, they didn't have lights ...

I had to wait for an hour while they got their UPS or generators, or whatever they had - started ... because without computers, they could not process my parcel ...
How did they do it BEFORE they started using computers ???

Another place where all hell breaks loose is banks and bill paying counters which use computers exclusively ... and the lights go ...

Had to pick up a draft from ICICI to pay my Engg fees .. and they could not process my request because their central servers were down ...
And they, for the love of God, could not give me a hand written draft like in the good old days ...

Had to wait for four hours for a draft, which I could easily get in 10 minutes from a co operative bank still doing work the old way ...
( I am saying this coz I think almost all Nationalised Banks and Private Banks in Pune are now computerised ... Actually most of the co operative banks are too ... yay !!! )

My point in this entire discussion being ... using technology for simplifying your life, is like tasting blood ( please ... I'm speaking figuratively ) ... it becomes extremely difficult to go back to old ways ...
And if you're in a country like India, and still get roped in, don't forget how to do things the old way ...
Not yet ... anyways ...

The whole people - importance thingy ...

This blog will be on a different note ... I will be deviating from my usual "trying to be funny" blogs ..

This does not concern with any person in particular, but an ideology in general ...
Why do people expect to be treated with importance ?

By this, I dont mean, the regular respect and courtesy which every individual has a right too ... but I mean, people, who feel offended, if not shown respect too ...
Or the ones, who need that constant licking, so that they feel alright ...

I mean, its not the man, but the achievement which commands the respect ... doesn't it ?
How many of us, admire Bill Gates, not for the money he has ... but the way he's earned it ?

In the past, I have come across so many individuals ... professors, people working in Govt Organisations, etc etc ... who want to be so badly treated with respect ...
We had a professor once, who would start off most of his lectures with .. I did this ... I did that ...
And, the entire class had to sit and tolerate all the non sense, only because our 50 marks were in his hands ...

Isn't the importance you associate with a person - in context ?
Like, we have a prof back in my junior college, whom I respect a lot ...
He told us this thing ... which I want to share now ...

I think, his point was, that there is no practical use of doing Trignometry and Calculus and all that stuff if you really wouldn't want to use it ever ...
He said, that if you go to a rickshawala, and tell him that you have a Phd in Mathematics or something like that ... his reply would most probably be ...
"Who gives a damn ? How does your Phd make a difference to me ?"

The point which I want to state is that everything is in context ...
If you were a PhD in Maths and were talking to a MSc, he would be pretty impressed, but I guess the rickshawala wouldnt care a damn ...

For example, when I were to meet my dad's boss in a wedding, is it supposed to make a difference to me ?
He is my 'dads' boss ... not mine ...
Why should I treat him any differently ...

Wanted to add another point of view ... The entire 'standards' thingy ...
A person might be very important ... if you believe in the same standards as he does.
What if you dont accept the same standards which make the person worthy of importance ...

Like, the people who wrote the constitution of India, felt that the backward class people and related reserved sections of the society, should have a quota reserved for them in Educational institutes, because they need it ...

I believe that if a person wants to pursue a course, he should be worthy of it, and be able to get it on his own merit.
Though that person ( who made the reservations ) would be God for some people, he doesn't make any difference to me ... because I don't believe in his standards ....
On the contrary, I kinda hate him ...

Average students who slog hard throughout their lives and end up with 80 - 85 percent marks, get admission in the second best colleges, end up paying 50 grand a year for their degree ... while the reserved category people, with 60% marks get into the best colleges, finish a 4 year course in 8 years ... that too if they are lucky ...

After all, paying a fees of 5 grand a year is peanuts, when your peers are paying 50 grand which also makes up for bulk of your fees ...

All this, just because you are worthy of studying in the college where you got admission, and they, because they have the need to ...

My typical day

[0745 hours]
It is a Saturday morning ...
Quite early for me to wake up ...
Logged on to the internet to check mail ...
The plan of the day : simple
Finish 2 writeups, 6 programs

[0930 hours]
Finish putting the last morsel of breakfast in my mouth.
Time to put the plan in action.

[1127 hours]
Put the finishing touches on 1st writeup.
1 big one more to go ...

[1131 hours]
Finish drawing the margin for the 2nd write up and start writing

[1133 hours]
Call from mom ... She's given her car for servicing ...
Have to go and buy spares and leave them with mechanic

[1203 hours]
With uncle at car shop, paying the money

[1227 hours]
Sitting at granny's place ... waiting to pick up mom from clinic.
Write ups completed : 1/2
Programs writted : 0/6

[1304 hours]
Reach home after picking up mom.

[1348 hours]
Finished lunch
Back to work

[1452 hours]
Call from Mechanic.
The right drive shaft turned out to be of a Wagon R instead of a Zens

[1512 hours]
At Mechanics
Mechanic remembers he forgot to ask me to get something else ...
Mechanic gives a list of more 3 things to buy before tomorrow

[1517 hours]
On way back home with heavy drive shaft jutting out of my Kiney on potholled roads

[1526 hours]
At entrance of society
Rear tyre starts wobbling tremendously ...

[1527 hours]
Rear tyre completely out of air

[1528 hours]
Kick the bike in frustruation

[1530 hours]
Finally at home, with what feels like an hour of dragging a bike with a flat rear tyre.
Dragged bike for distance of 300 mts in about 2 mins 40 seconds
Number of times bike foot stand hit calf : 12

[1547 hours]
Get up after having changed the flat tyre

[1602 hours]
Back in room
Wasting time on the computer
Write ups done : 1/2
Programs written : 0 / 6

[1806 hours]
Dropped mom to clinic on bike

[1856 hours]
At tyre repair guy's shop
Still getting flat fixed

[1908 hours]
Leaving shop
On scavenger hunt for the remaing stuff to give mechanic

[1912 hours]
Standing in front of closed car shop which was open in the morning

[1921 hours]
Still searching for shops which have the requisite stuff

[1955 hours]
Back at home after successful scavenger hunt

[2214 hours]
Just putting finishing touches on 2nd write up
Write ups completed : 2/2
Programs written : 0/6

[2356 hours]
Finishing stupid blog
Expecting many hate emails and comments
Write ups completed : 2/2
Programs written : 0/6
Result : "Screwed" on Monday


"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong ..."

Comments ... Word Verification ...

Just a quick thing ...

I enabled the Word Verification on my comments thingy ...
Seems that the only comments I get these days are by spammers ...

So, for all those of you who still take the trouble of commenting and letting me know that there are people who read what I put up, I am sorry, but you'll have to key in an extra word ...

Sorry, but this step has become necessary ...

aarrgghhh!!!!!!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Read somewhere that bloggers use blogs to remove frustruation ...
My life's a mess ...

I am having one of those mid-mid-life crisis ...
I hope that it gets better soon !!!

Until then,
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There ... feeling better already :)

It's the end of the world ... and I feel fine ...

If you had watched the movie Independence Day carefully, you'd notice that there is a song playing very often in the background which goes
"It's the end of the world ... as we know it ... know it ... and I feel fine ..."

Its sung by R.E.M

Anyways, seriously ... is it really the end of the world .. or am I just being paranoid ?
These have been the worst monsoons ever ... and I have been through the thick and thin of it ...
And the worst part is that it has not yet stopped and does not the least bit look like it ...

It's already almost mid September and the rains seem relentless ...
Mumbai has been flooded for ... I don't know how many times over ...

The infrastructure is pathetic as it is ... but the rains have just worsened it to new heights ...

There is an actual stretch of road here in Pune, which starts from Residency Club to the Don Bosco Bridge ( for those of you in Pune and know the place ) that is so, so, so, so, so bad ... that I swear to God, you would probably be better off taking a 5 km extra long path, just so you could avoid the 500 mts or so of that road ...

I mean, people actually come on bikes till the entrance of the road, look at it and turn back and go another way ...

I had the pleasure of getting stuck on it in my car ...
The only other time, I was so scared was when I was in a pretty big roller coaster sometime ago.

I dont have my camera with me right now, otherwise I would take pictures and post it.

Anyways, the weather has really turned lop sided this year ... and it has happened so suddenly ..
Last year, most of the things were normal .. but now, rain has become such a part of our lives that you wonder why it isn't raining at the moment ...

If I could bring your attention to a very recent movie ... "The Day After Tommorrow" which was completely about the shift in weather patterns and everything freezing over, it does not look so sci - fi now ... does it ?

Saurabh's Seminar Tips ...

Okay, was just doing TP online in the morning ( ya ! I get up in the morning too ) when I got a comment regarding my previous blog ...
And then I realised ... crap ( its better than saying shit ... ) !
I forgot to post my set of tips in my previous post ... which was the main intention ...

However, the previous one was so long and I wrote it in 2 sittings, that by the end of it, just wanted to finish it off ...
So, naturally forgot to write the tips ...

======================================
These are to be followed on your own risk ... I am not responsible for you getting chucked out of the college ... Though it is a remote possibility ...
But just washing my hands off it anyways ...
======================================

Okay, so here goes ...

====================
The first and the foremost thing is that you DO NOT want to ... and I repeat ... DO NOT want to bore the examiner or any other people sitting for your seminar.

If by the end, the examiner is yawning, and has trouble remembering what your topic was, you are pretty done for anyways ...
=====================

Okay, read carefully ...

How you plan to start, and how much time you spend on preparing your start depends on the time of day and the number at which you will be giving your seminar.

If you are one of the people giving the starting 3 seminars of the day, you probably dont need to work on your starting much ...

But, if you are giving your seminar just before the lunch or towards the end of day, or sometime in the middle, when you know, people will be dead ... a little intro video or music will do wonders to your marks.
No matter how stupid your friends think of your effort to put some stupid sound track on the first page, do it ...

It wakes the people and makes them attentive enough to be able to sit through your seminar.
Not to mention the examiers too ...

A friend of mine had his, second last before break and he started with the Kill Bill soundtrack.
Most of the people were laughing when he said that he'd be putting the soundtrack ...
He almost changed his mind, but last minute decided to go with it ...
His seminar probably turned out to be one of the best of the day ... even though he had a not so interesting topic.

And I noticed that almost 75% of the class sat attentively through his presentation for 8 out of the 15 minutes that he was there ...
So, if your start is good, half the battle is won.

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Also, make sure that you end well ... its pretty difficult and I found only a couple of people pulled it off ...
Though, this is not as important as starting well ... for obvious reasons ...

Firstly, most of your audience left are your loyal friends ... and the examiners give the marks somewhere in the middle of your seminar.
So, unless you really botch up your ending, you should do fine ...

Just start well ...

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I cannot stress enough for the fact that you should make your seminar interesting ...
No matter what your topic ...

Your presentation does not have to stick to the paper ... it can deviate a lot ...
When preparing your ppt, ask yourself whether you would actually want to sit and listen to it in the audience ...

If the answer is 'NO' ... you're probably going about it the wrong way ...
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Hard work always pays ...
Search, search, search the internet for flashier icons ... and the works ...

Make your stuff look good ... even though it means burning the mid night oil a day before ...
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Using a default template is definitely a no - no.
Almost all the people in my class made their own templates ....
Not only does it give you originality and allows you to make your presentation resemble your seminar topic, you also avoid putting on a template someone else used already ...
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Watch out for the colour scheme ... What may look good on your monitor, may not look good on the projector ...

Try to keep a white bg with black / blue text or the inverse ...

If there is not enough cover in your seminar hall ( like we did not have curtains and there was a lot of light ), you'd be better of using a black bg and white text ...
I screwed up in this regard ... I had a white bg with Blue text
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And finally, my list of things that will get you killed and things which will save your ass ...
( Compiled painstakingly during the presentations )

THINGS WHICH YOU'D GET KILLED FOR
( i.e. things which you should not do ... duh ! )

1. Going technical very early
- Bad mistake ... People who do this, will lose 80% of their audience within 5 seconds ...
Take my word on it ... No one, and that includes even the examiner, is interested in seeing protocols and architectural diagrams ...
Though this is important ( to show that you did some work ) keep it at last after you've said what you wanted people to hear

2. Lots of Architecture Diagrams
3. Not preparing the presentation well
4. No eye contact with the audience
5. Speaking fast

6. Using an auto timer on the slides.
- This is by far the worst you could do for yourself.
Don't be stupid and dont try to show off unneccesarily ...
Advance the slides yourself ... and if it is too much work, bribe a friend to do it for you.

7. Underlining text
- Does not look cool ... not always anyways ...
Try CAPITALISING or making text bold.

8. Bad font selection ...
- Avoid using fonts like Times etc .. they dont look good on screen

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THINGS THAT WILL SAVE YOUR ASS
( or the things that you SHOULD DO )

1. Give more real life examples
- Something that people can relate too ...

2. Use more easy to understand images

3. Do something to grab people's attention at the beginning of the seminar
- Use video, audio, aliens, do a strip show ... anything ...
Just make sure people give you atleast 5 minutes to get their attention full time.

4. Speak loudly and confidently.

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Okay, that was another long blog ...
So, me will again lay off for a while ...

Put up a comment if you need more help specifically.

And if you find this information useful, please consider making a donation to my PayPal account.
( Hey, I just bought a cell ... down by a lot of cash ... need to make that up somehow ! )

Scenes from a Seminar Hall

We just finished our BE Seminars a couple of days ago, and I am still basking in the sense of achievement that I did not screw it up ...

Oh well, some idiot messed with the projector settings and my slides got all screwed and stuff, but other then that, it was mostly okay ...

Getting into the meat of things, I wanted to write about the observations that I had during the 4 gruelling days of sitting and listening to other people talk mostly about subjects which I had no interest off ...

So, here goes ... the people who make up a typical seminar situation ...

1. The Guy Giving the Seminar
This without doubt is the most important guy in the seminar room.
The poor soul, whose worst fear is of public speaking ( even greater than death ), is made to stand up in front of 50 people, who are mostly not interested in whatever he has to say.
On top of that, he is expected to narrate and manage the slides in the 15 minutes alloted to him.
These people fall in the following category ...

1.1 - The under time fellows
These are the people who prepared too few a slides, and probably did not practise enough to realise that they did not fall into the 13 - 15 minute category.
These people make up about 35% of the crowd and finish their seminar, to the delight of all others, within 8 - 9 minutes.
The number of slides are typically just around 20 and the topics covered are generally superficial, and application oriented ( non technical ) which does not allow for more matter, and hence more time for the presentation.

Notable features are lots of pausing and umms and aahhs ... which basically help them get to 8 minutes ...

1.2 - The good time fellows
Most of the people fell in this category. I'd say about 50% of the people ...
These people have generally practised atleast once and finish off their seminars between 13 - 14 minutes.
These people generally, are not very hated and the they have a good mix of technical and non technical information, evenly spaced out ...
These people probably end up with the most marks.

Notable features are generally decent presentations and many a times, elocution like speeches which come off as mugged up ...
Quite a few topics falling in this category are decent and worth listening too ...

1.3 - The over time fellows
These people generally shoot off their 15 minutes.
This species, has trouble, not knowing what matter to cut down and how much to speak on.
Either the person has really prepared the entire seminar on his own ( thus not being able to delete the content that he so painstakingly collected ) or the fellow just copied the entire seminar of some person from another college ...

Notable characteristics are skipping through atleast 20 slides, rushing off so fast that people didnt even get the topic.
And mostly, the ability to cram 40 - 50 slides in the space of 15 minutes.

2 - The Examiners
These people are the most confused people sitting in the hall.
They either know that they have no idea about what you are talking or they 'think' they have an idea of what you are talking.

What students generally worry about is not whether they will be able to answer the questions these people ask at the end of the seminar, but whether they will be able to somehow relate their topic to the questions asked by these people ...

Therefore, questions such as "But don't you need some p2p network to use BitTorrents ?" after a seminar on BitTorrents, or a question like "Tell me the application of Red Tacton in touch screens ..." ( Red Tacton is a method of transferring data by human touch ) are asked.

And the students are left totally bewildered and are lost for words.

We had a examiner who had his head so high up his a** that he asked questions to each and every student ...
No matter if the question was the least bit related ...
Naturally, most of the people trying to answer would be left fumbling and confused ...

This guy would sit back, look at the hapless student and smile ... thinking that he was oh, so smart and clever to ask such questions ...
And sitting at the back, we would think, "What a moron !"

3 - The General Audience
These people make up for maximum of the crowd.
If you can speak well and hold their attention, you can keep them interested for exactly 3 minutes.
After which, most of them go to sleep, or put those ear phones back on ...

In the very rare event, do these listen to the entire seminar ...
And if they do, you can be rest assured that you have done a good job.

4 - Your loyal friends
These people are your truest buddies from the class.
They will turn up for your seminar and even sit through it, patiently, attentively trying to grasp every word that comes out of your mouth - never mind it not making the wee bit sense ...

Nodding everytime you look at them - to give you confidence.
These are the people, you'd probably need most during the 15 minutes ... and the ones to start clapping as soon as you've answered a couple of questions, to spare you from the slaughter ...

5 - The Not So Friendly ...
These people are the ones who have been waiting patiently, anxiously even ... for you to get up there for your seminar.
They prepare, conspire, read your report, so that they can ask you questions which you probably wouldn't be able to answer in the Q & A round.

These ploys generally fail and seldom work, thus adding more insult to injury ...
Interesting attributes include, asking multiple variants of the same question and back questioning, till they get tired themselves, or the person answers with a shrug, and the words, "I don't know ..."

6 - The Plants ...
These are the ones which you pass on questions to, to be asked during the Q&A round.
Probably the only ones you can answer properly ... with confidence ...

These are very easily noticeable, because mostly the questions are very lame, multiplied with lamer acting on the part of the person asking the question ...
This is generally followed by some scratching of the head or stammering on the part of the person giving the seminar, so that it all looks authentic ...

The biggest give away of this entire operation is that the plants are generally seated within a radius of 2 to 3 people of the person giving the seminar ... before he got up to give it ...
Helps in the easy passing out of chit questions ...

Next blog, what to do and what not to in a seminar cum presentation ...

Back on dialup ...

Hmmmm ... ( to be read as a very depressed sigh ... )

After a month of cruising along in what our govt calls broadband ... its that time of the month again when all the past days' "bandwidth spendthrift attitude" comes back and hits you where it hurts ...

I've got the BSNL 256 K home plan, which comes with a 1 GB download limit ...
1 GB ???
Who in the right head comes up with these plans ?
Aren't people not allowed to come in to work drunk ? What about doped ?

Seriously ...
We have night time free ... yeah ...
Or call it early morning free ... from 2 friggin' AM to 8 AM ...
These timings are making a moron out of me ...

Last month, nothing major was happening, so I managed to cut down till about 970 Meg by the month end ...
This time with seminars, all the papers to download and research, and by the end of the month, my XBOX got dinked ...
More research and frantic searching ensued ...
( But I got it up and running finally last night ... yay !!! )

But with 940 MB gone and 4 days to take out on a 60 MB, I'm just holding on ... for a rainy day ...
If any of you'll will need me, I'll be on dial up for a couple of days ...
( BSNL charges 1.2 bucks per MB of download !!! )
It's kinda nostalgic you know ... That 3 tone buzz that comes out of the modem when you try to connect ... the 30 seconds !!! that you need to connect ...
And the best things are the ultra variable connecting speeds ( mostly due to the awesome quality of phone lines that the same morons from BSNL put up )
As of now, I have successfully connected after 7 tries at 9.6 kbps !!!

Thats me signing off ...

And yeah, if you are from BSNL and reading this, please grow a brain !

Me ... geeky ???

This test was actually amusing ...
Hehehe ...

Another one ...

The dirtiness factor ...

When does your room become so dirty, that it actually turns into a feature of that place ?

When your mom gives up asking you to clean it and vows never to talk about it ... ever ...
When the maid starts charging extra, just to enter and clean your room ?
When ?

Anyways, I've got a normal room here ...
Lets see ... one cupboard, a study table ( which is never used nowadays ), one computer table ( which is as dusty as it can be ), one bed, two chairs ( I stole one chair from my dad's room ) and quite a few boxes here and there containing stuff, I mostly will never open again ...

You remember, the only time you "actually" clean your room is when your friends come over ... for the first time ?
The first thing you'd probably hear is how "clean" your room looks ...
Then you go something like ... "Nah ... I just did it today because you guys were coming over"

As more people stream into your room and compliment you on your "cleanliness", "cleanliness" doesn't remain a compliment any longer ...
It seems more like a guilt, for a crime which you committed ...
So, next time they come ... they get to see what your room "actually" looks like ...
And they feel better ... and you become one of the tribe ...

And then there is the "switcheroo"
We guys do it so often, that we have even come up a term for it ...

Switcheroo /vb/ : The act of transferring clothes from one location to another, on the arrival of entities in your room, so as to make more space for people to fit in ..

Now, my room is not that bad ... atleast comparing to stuff you see on US Television ...
You can easily walk into the room ... and you can probably sit somewhere too, once I have performed the Switcheroo ...
But my mom kinda gave up on asking me to clean it sometime ago ...

Rooms never stay clean ( or do they, and I am missing something here ? ), so the thought of cleaning it, is just in the back of my memory ... somewhere ...

But that great pile of clothes on the chair besides me, has started to give me the shivers ...
Hence this blog, and maybe ... just maybe ... I'll venture into that dimentia ... the room cleaning one ...

If that ever happens, I'll update all you people ...
Then we could probably have a party or something ... :)