Saturday, June 23, 2007
desperate attempts at poetry ... (or lack of thereof)
on a dry, thirsty, saarang day .... back in iitm... they decided that water wouldn't be free anymore... and I wrote this for the gossip mag...
Saarang has no water,
It's poor IIT-ians to the slaughter...
The food is spicy, the weather is dicey,
If yesterday you pee-ed kuch soch boch bina,
Today you have to shell out 12 bucks for an aqua fina...
on MCC girls during Saarang...
Informals make me glad,
not cause there is fun to be had,
Infact, it's mediocre fare,
I don't care, I just sit and stare,
at mcc girls, so scantily clad.
Electromagnetics
Then there was this guy Maxwell,
4 equations, once he did tell,
Why ? no one knows,
but at 25, my graying hair shows,
He has made my life a living hell....
... i have more somewhere.. will come :-D
Saarang has no water,
It's poor IIT-ians to the slaughter...
The food is spicy, the weather is dicey,
If yesterday you pee-ed kuch soch boch bina,
Today you have to shell out 12 bucks for an aqua fina...
on MCC girls during Saarang...
Informals make me glad,
not cause there is fun to be had,
Infact, it's mediocre fare,
I don't care, I just sit and stare,
at mcc girls, so scantily clad.
Electromagnetics
Then there was this guy Maxwell,
4 equations, once he did tell,
Why ? no one knows,
but at 25, my graying hair shows,
He has made my life a living hell....
... i have more somewhere.. will come :-D
Friday, September 08, 2006
some people never learn
Man on trial for threatening judge, threatens judge
Reminds me of some of the people I know....
Reminds me of some of the people I know....
...and just when you think nothing would surprise you anymore
I love Kerala... but then sometimes something like this comes along that defies all imagination. Apparently the government in a (surprisingly) good move decided to put up "speed governers ~ speeding rules/fines et al" for large vehicles and the All Kerala Assn of buses and trucks and tanker lorries is actually calling for a strike in protest !!!!! Here is the story . Yup... only in my own sweet Kerala... will people actually protest the enforcement of something that is so logical. (oh, btw, they will probaby get their way out of this too in the end...) For those who are wondering why we need speed limits for these monsters, take into account that more than 50% of road accidents have one of these guys at the giving end (and usually a small motorist at the receiving).
Recently there have been some moves by the Kerala govt. that have inspired some admiration... the banning of Pepsi and Coke, the introduction of Linux and some other to name a few, but then ..... once in a while, as if just to prove a point, we have one of these...
oh... i love malluland...
Recently there have been some moves by the Kerala govt. that have inspired some admiration... the banning of Pepsi and Coke, the introduction of Linux and some other to name a few, but then ..... once in a while, as if just to prove a point, we have one of these...
oh... i love malluland...
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
what an onam
today was onam... yet another day in the life of a mallu faar faaaaaar away from malluland.... life went on as usual.. nothing exciting happened.. no girls walked up to me to confess their secret admiration... had breakfast, went to the lab, did something till lunch... went home... had lunch.. came back... and then as if God himself took pity on my state of affairs... got completely drenched in a sudden rain that came pouring down so fast that I couldn't help but be reminded of my own little God's own country and the june monsoons.. kids splashing about in the muddy waters.. on their way to school... the traffic jams because thampanoor bus station is flooded.... people holding umbrellas and still getting wet... some others just giving up and enjoying the "free bath" ... yeah... brought back a flood of memories... and i heard myself laughing out aloud.. (much to the surprise of the freshman girl who was cycling in the opposite direction) ...
there is some of malluland here today after all ....
what an onam...
there is some of malluland here today after all ....
what an onam...
From Speed Dials to Fans lists : Desperation : Orkut Style
I remember this Seinfield episode (or was it some other sit-com) where friendship was measured on the scale of what your number was on the speed dial of someone's phone. The world, it seems, has always delighed in social pissing contests (i know more people than you do ) and one of the latest entrants into the fray is orkut. I am an self admitted orkut addict. I check my scrap book around 10 times a day, which considering that I check email only 10 times an hour, is an enormous number. I don't always reply to scraps but desperately crave a reply for each scrap that I send out (somehow the irony of that has managed to escape me until this minute ). I started out orkutting long ago and my friends list grew sporadically to around 230 people and then stagnated right there. Nowadays I desperately hunt down old schoolmates (their family ???!!!) and others in the hope of increasing that number by some inconsequential amount. One wonders what would happen if I were to put that effort into research (of the academic variety).
Then there came this concept of fans and karma. I now measure other people based on the number of fans they have. The little "hearts, ice cubes and smileys" as Orkut deigns to call them have become yardsticks to qualify people you have hardly met.
Ofcourse, all this is accompanied by the standard travails of any such mess... the desperate "cool-dudes" knocking on unknown girls friends lists because they look cute in their display pics.... communities for things as specific as " a**l s*x in lucknow, india"... one wonders how they got THEIR kicks before orkut kicked in...
but the point here is... i am still reminded of my old middle school days when all that mattered was how many girls you knew in class... and that gave you the bragging rights at a lot of lunch hours... not much has changed now has it.. ?
Then there came this concept of fans and karma. I now measure other people based on the number of fans they have. The little "hearts, ice cubes and smileys" as Orkut deigns to call them have become yardsticks to qualify people you have hardly met.
Ofcourse, all this is accompanied by the standard travails of any such mess... the desperate "cool-dudes" knocking on unknown girls friends lists because they look cute in their display pics.... communities for things as specific as " a**l s*x in lucknow, india"... one wonders how they got THEIR kicks before orkut kicked in...
but the point here is... i am still reminded of my old middle school days when all that mattered was how many girls you knew in class... and that gave you the bragging rights at a lot of lunch hours... not much has changed now has it.. ?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Weathering the weather....
I have decided that I hate the weather. No, not this season, I just plain, completely hate the whole concept of weather. I hate being cold and hot and no bloodywhere in between... I hate having to wear two layers of clothing on my way to work only to find myself sweating like a pig (why do i say that by the way, do pigs sweat ??? ) by the time I get to school. I hate having to put on a fan at night and then wake up three hours later having to switch it off because I feel too cold. I hate sleeping on one side of the bed and then discovering that the other side was under the window and so half a degree cooler and then moving over there only to discover that it gets too cold in 10 seconds. I hate having to look at a thermometer and worry about when the mercury is going to boil (or freeze for that matter).. I hate having to set my heater to "heat" mode in the morning, only to have to switch to "cold" in the evenings. Ofcourse, I also hate hurricanes, global warming, global cooling and all the other things that I am supposed to hate.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Einstein or Edison
Albert Einstein and Thomas Alva Edison were, though equally praise worthy, two completely different individuals.
Einstein was what I would call a "thinker". He thought for a living and much of his thoughts were understood only long after he was gone. With computers, people took several years after his time to fully comprehend the full implications and the utter simplicity underlying several of his calculations and predictions. He was best in his element with a pen and a piece of paper.
Edison, on the other had was a "doer". He did. He had over 1000 patents, which I believe is a world record to this day (and by far at that). He always got his hands dirty. He believed in building things, not thinking about them. He was one of those people who had to see (and in most cases, make,) to believe. He was in his element when playing with something or building something that worked.
As a result, if you notice, much of the work Einstein did was in extremely complicated mathematics while much of the work Edison did involved the simplest concepts of electricity and magnetism. This is the fundamental difference and I would like to impress that both are equally important in its own right. We cannot live without thinkers and we DEFINITELY cannot live without the doers.
So the question is what do I aspire to be ? Having spent a (hopefully significant !!!) two and a half years in doctoral school, new students ask me this question. To them I say, in a very sagely manner, "It depends". In other words, I haven't the slightest idea. Einstein seems a lot more romantic but Edison seems a lot more useful to the world in general. Einstein seems a lot more unachievable, but Edison seems to involve a lot more actual hard work.
I still am wondering who I want to be. Maybe some day I will succeed in one or fail terribly in the other and I will decide on one. Till that date, maybe I can just wait for comments to this post.
Naveen
Einstein was what I would call a "thinker". He thought for a living and much of his thoughts were understood only long after he was gone. With computers, people took several years after his time to fully comprehend the full implications and the utter simplicity underlying several of his calculations and predictions. He was best in his element with a pen and a piece of paper.
Edison, on the other had was a "doer". He did. He had over 1000 patents, which I believe is a world record to this day (and by far at that). He always got his hands dirty. He believed in building things, not thinking about them. He was one of those people who had to see (and in most cases, make,) to believe. He was in his element when playing with something or building something that worked.
As a result, if you notice, much of the work Einstein did was in extremely complicated mathematics while much of the work Edison did involved the simplest concepts of electricity and magnetism. This is the fundamental difference and I would like to impress that both are equally important in its own right. We cannot live without thinkers and we DEFINITELY cannot live without the doers.
So the question is what do I aspire to be ? Having spent a (hopefully significant !!!) two and a half years in doctoral school, new students ask me this question. To them I say, in a very sagely manner, "It depends". In other words, I haven't the slightest idea. Einstein seems a lot more romantic but Edison seems a lot more useful to the world in general. Einstein seems a lot more unachievable, but Edison seems to involve a lot more actual hard work.
I still am wondering who I want to be. Maybe some day I will succeed in one or fail terribly in the other and I will decide on one. Till that date, maybe I can just wait for comments to this post.
Naveen
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Snow
Someone told me that when you come to Michigan, expect snowfall. Here are some of the things they DIDN'T tell me.
1. what falls on you are not snowflakes but bloody snowballs. It almost seems like God is having a snowball fight with earth. The flakes are big enough to cause bloody pain and they are thrown with a vengance.
2. If you own a car, it will take you 15 minutes to find our car and then 1/2 hour to clean it.
When I was in school I heard a poem, "Death the Leveler", well as far as parking lots in michigan go , it is snow the leveler. All cars from the poshest cadillacs to the meagerest nissan sentras, are covered equally and left mercilessly looking the same, so when you go hunting for your car in the parking lot, you have to wipe out license plate after license plate so that you don't end up cleaning someone else's car.
IF you manage to actually find your car, well that is when the fun REALLY starts.... u get to clean the car of snow...THAT is a task in itself and quite rightly demands that you stand out in the freezing cold with a bursh and scraper in your hand and clean the windows and the windshields.
AFTER you do that, the bloody snowfall is SO bad that if you so much as stop at a traffic light, you have to get out and clean the windshields before you can move on.
So let us assume that you manage to find AND clean your car. Now what ? you plan to drive it right ? wrong. The car drives itself in winter. You just hang on to the wheel and hope to all Gods you know that whatever you hit is not alive (when you hit it that is !!!). Skidding is the order of the day. It took me 45 minutes to make it from school to home today (A usual drive i make in 4 minutes, I know because I listen to the 7:01 to 7:05 news when I drive) .
Now what should one be doing in this weather ? Let me give you a hint... how about sleeping peacefully at home ? Well, instead I am sitting here, in front of this stupid computer typing this blog that hardly any one reads.... I need to get a life !!!!
Naveen
1. what falls on you are not snowflakes but bloody snowballs. It almost seems like God is having a snowball fight with earth. The flakes are big enough to cause bloody pain and they are thrown with a vengance.
2. If you own a car, it will take you 15 minutes to find our car and then 1/2 hour to clean it.
When I was in school I heard a poem, "Death the Leveler", well as far as parking lots in michigan go , it is snow the leveler. All cars from the poshest cadillacs to the meagerest nissan sentras, are covered equally and left mercilessly looking the same, so when you go hunting for your car in the parking lot, you have to wipe out license plate after license plate so that you don't end up cleaning someone else's car.
IF you manage to actually find your car, well that is when the fun REALLY starts.... u get to clean the car of snow...THAT is a task in itself and quite rightly demands that you stand out in the freezing cold with a bursh and scraper in your hand and clean the windows and the windshields.
AFTER you do that, the bloody snowfall is SO bad that if you so much as stop at a traffic light, you have to get out and clean the windshields before you can move on.
So let us assume that you manage to find AND clean your car. Now what ? you plan to drive it right ? wrong. The car drives itself in winter. You just hang on to the wheel and hope to all Gods you know that whatever you hit is not alive (when you hit it that is !!!). Skidding is the order of the day. It took me 45 minutes to make it from school to home today (A usual drive i make in 4 minutes, I know because I listen to the 7:01 to 7:05 news when I drive) .
Now what should one be doing in this weather ? Let me give you a hint... how about sleeping peacefully at home ? Well, instead I am sitting here, in front of this stupid computer typing this blog that hardly any one reads.... I need to get a life !!!!
Naveen
Saturday, October 23, 2004
I am back
For those who thought that I was gone, or even worse, that I was in prison (read my last post), I have some news. I am not. I am back and back stronger than ever before. I was just being my lazy old self. Ofcourse now that I have admitted that, I will deny it completely. I was just too busy.
If by now, like me, you are wondering if I got hit on the head, well I did not get hit on the head either. Too Bad. This is what is.
In any case I will be back with some more bloggable things in some time.
Till then
Ciao
Naveen
If by now, like me, you are wondering if I got hit on the head, well I did not get hit on the head either. Too Bad. This is what is.
In any case I will be back with some more bloggable things in some time.
Till then
Ciao
Naveen
Saturday, October 02, 2004
My Qualifier Exams
In every graduate student's life there are certain things that he doesn't speak about (for further details look into "PhD- Piled Higher and Deeper".) In any case, the first amongst these are the PhD qualifier exams, otherwise known by names such as Doctoral Written Exams, Preliminary Exam, that stupid-thing-that-made-me-give-up-my-PhD and so on.
I had mine a couple of weeks ago. Now, having come from a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, life was a lot more complicated for me, with respect to my quals than for the more fortunate human beings who had been in Electrical Engineering all life long. This added to the confusion and being my nice procrastinating self, I decided to start preparing for this somewhere early in May. Alas, there is a difference between DECIDING to start and actually starting. I realized this somewhere in mid august (my exam was on September 15th) and decided that it was too late. So I let it go anyways. Somewhere around 2nd or 3rd of September, I decided to take a look at the past years' question papers. This is when it really struck me that I was not going to pass this thing. There was the usual feverish preparation for two days and before I knew it I had the exam in my hand.
After the exam was over, I had no clue about how difficult it was because I had no idea what I had done. Somehow the people around me seemed to think it was difficult so I decided that my best bet was to go along with that opinion, which is exactly what I did.
I really didn't know how it happened but somewhere around 3 days before the results were to be announced, I started thinking that maybe I could pass. THAT WAS BAD. Now there was this period of extreme tension, prayer and sleeplessness when I waited for the result. I have a theory that any PhD student spends 40% of his time waiting for his advisor and 60% of his time, running away from him. If this is true, I completed this years' forty percent worth waiting for him to do something about my qualifier result. The poor man must have got tired of seeing my face pop into his office each day asking him if he knew anything about the results.
Anyways I finally got my result yesterday and it seems that miracle of miracles, I passed !!! God be praised. That means that I am finally in here, a PhD student. Wow. That needs some time to sink in. In the meantime back to sleep.
ZZZzzzz.....
Naveen
I had mine a couple of weeks ago. Now, having come from a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, life was a lot more complicated for me, with respect to my quals than for the more fortunate human beings who had been in Electrical Engineering all life long. This added to the confusion and being my nice procrastinating self, I decided to start preparing for this somewhere early in May. Alas, there is a difference between DECIDING to start and actually starting. I realized this somewhere in mid august (my exam was on September 15th) and decided that it was too late. So I let it go anyways. Somewhere around 2nd or 3rd of September, I decided to take a look at the past years' question papers. This is when it really struck me that I was not going to pass this thing. There was the usual feverish preparation for two days and before I knew it I had the exam in my hand.
After the exam was over, I had no clue about how difficult it was because I had no idea what I had done. Somehow the people around me seemed to think it was difficult so I decided that my best bet was to go along with that opinion, which is exactly what I did.
I really didn't know how it happened but somewhere around 3 days before the results were to be announced, I started thinking that maybe I could pass. THAT WAS BAD. Now there was this period of extreme tension, prayer and sleeplessness when I waited for the result. I have a theory that any PhD student spends 40% of his time waiting for his advisor and 60% of his time, running away from him. If this is true, I completed this years' forty percent worth waiting for him to do something about my qualifier result. The poor man must have got tired of seeing my face pop into his office each day asking him if he knew anything about the results.
Anyways I finally got my result yesterday and it seems that miracle of miracles, I passed !!! God be praised. That means that I am finally in here, a PhD student. Wow. That needs some time to sink in. In the meantime back to sleep.
ZZZzzzz.....
Naveen
Saturday, September 25, 2004
No wonder people use Windows
For a long time, I have been having conversations with people about whether Windows or Linux is better and the conversation almost always leads, after the intial wandering around the linux-is-free and Bill Gates-is-a-bad-man areas, to one of three issues, support, security and stability.
Support: Linux supporters say that Linux is much better supported than Windows. If something goes wrong in Windows, you need to pay Bill Gates (who by the way is a very bad man) a lot of money to enroll in a support program. Linux, however is, wonder of wonders, free. So is support in linux. There are a million users who are just waiting to solve your problems with forums and discussion groups.
Security: Now WHO would ever want to launch a nuclear attack using my 486 is beyond me, but Linux, they say, is much much more secure than Windows. You don't have viruses in Linux. Ofcourse you don't harldy any one uses Linux... who would spend effort writing viruses for something that no one uses ?
Stability : Linux is way more stable than windows. Look at crash histories (not those crashes, computer crashes)
OK. So i said to myself last week, enough is enough. I decided to install Linux.
Linux ? What is that ? There are more than 300 varities available, each with its own feature sets, each a different OS in itself. Do you want, Fedora, Debian, Redhat, Suse, Mandrake .... ? Ok trouble number 1, which do I pick. I pick Fedora because it has the most rave reviews. I decide to download Fedora. It comes in 4 CD's. Wait a minute, did I say 4? Yes four.. FOUR!!!! what on earth could be so big ? Well Fedora for one. So I spend the better half of my morning (which is a pretty big amount to spend, considering I have only half a morning to begin with) downloading 4*700 MB of stuff. (my first comparison : Windows install : - 1CD, around 400MB) Then I decide to install. The installation process was pretty steady, well more like SLOW and steady (install time 2.4 hours : comparison 2 : windows xp : 34 minutes).
OK... So now we are installed. So what is new ? Well for starters it will not play mp3's . Great. Now how do I get it to play mp3's ? Well there are these people just waiting to help me out there, so let us go talk to them... Google, here I come...
1 hour on Google later, I find out that Fedora doesn't support MP3's.
"Not to worry!" , says the forum. Just install this plugin for that player.
...How do I do that ?
Well, there is a program called up2dater
...which doesn't work .... google here I come
1 more hour later
Up2dater is not up2date, so it won't work
...Gr8 NOW what do I do,
well there is a text version, called yum
...yum ???? who on earth would name a file that way... anyways
so I run YUM and all it seems to be doing hour after hour is to download headers ... google here I come
1/2 hour later
yes YUM will do that. It needs to download headers each time
....EACH TIME ??
well not really. After the first, it will just download the new ones
... well how many new ones every day ?
Hmm.. around a 100 ?
... So that is 100 new headers each day ?
Well, if you run it more than once a day ?
... But I would hardly install anything more than once a day
You should really spend more time installing stuff on your computer !!!
Anyways 2/3 hours later Yum is done and I can hear music. Praise be to the lord. I log off and go to sleep.
2 hours later ...
I log in, I can't access the network.
I restart
I log in I CAN access the network
I log out
I log in, I can't access the network
I restart... you get the picture...
Google here I come...
1 hour
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
2 hours
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
5 hours
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
10 hous
I uninstall Fedora and download Mandrake
Install time : 2 hours. AND it cannot recognize my monitor. I chose some general monitor and get away.
This time I find out that my display is the one that is messing with my network. So armed with this new knowledge, I go back to ... you know where.... google here I come...
1 hour later...
Sorry never heard of it
12 hours later
Sorry never heard of it
24 hours later
I don't know
48 hours later
YOU still haven't figured it out ? You must be retarded man.
Ok then I figured out a way. Not a solution but atleast a work around. I found out that if I restarted the Xserver instead of logging off (for those not that Linux savvy, it is like not too far from getting a new car each time you wanted to fill gas.) However I find that if I do it too many times, the X server doesn't like it and decides to pull tricks on me. That is what these guys call a "known bug" which makes it all ok , I guess.
THAT is when I decide that enough is REALLY enough. I decide to install windows.
1 hour later
I am done, I can watch movies, play songs, type this blog and do whatever else I want.
NO WONDER people use Windows
----update : 10.05.06 : I have now been (for the past 4 months) been exclusively using Linux ... :-D .. men change.. i will come up with a "No wonder people use Linux" soon :-)
nn
Support: Linux supporters say that Linux is much better supported than Windows. If something goes wrong in Windows, you need to pay Bill Gates (who by the way is a very bad man) a lot of money to enroll in a support program. Linux, however is, wonder of wonders, free. So is support in linux. There are a million users who are just waiting to solve your problems with forums and discussion groups.
Security: Now WHO would ever want to launch a nuclear attack using my 486 is beyond me, but Linux, they say, is much much more secure than Windows. You don't have viruses in Linux. Ofcourse you don't harldy any one uses Linux... who would spend effort writing viruses for something that no one uses ?
Stability : Linux is way more stable than windows. Look at crash histories (not those crashes, computer crashes)
OK. So i said to myself last week, enough is enough. I decided to install Linux.
Linux ? What is that ? There are more than 300 varities available, each with its own feature sets, each a different OS in itself. Do you want, Fedora, Debian, Redhat, Suse, Mandrake .... ? Ok trouble number 1, which do I pick. I pick Fedora because it has the most rave reviews. I decide to download Fedora. It comes in 4 CD's. Wait a minute, did I say 4? Yes four.. FOUR!!!! what on earth could be so big ? Well Fedora for one. So I spend the better half of my morning (which is a pretty big amount to spend, considering I have only half a morning to begin with) downloading 4*700 MB of stuff. (my first comparison : Windows install : - 1CD, around 400MB) Then I decide to install. The installation process was pretty steady, well more like SLOW and steady (install time 2.4 hours : comparison 2 : windows xp : 34 minutes).
OK... So now we are installed. So what is new ? Well for starters it will not play mp3's . Great. Now how do I get it to play mp3's ? Well there are these people just waiting to help me out there, so let us go talk to them... Google, here I come...
1 hour on Google later, I find out that Fedora doesn't support MP3's.
"Not to worry!" , says the forum. Just install this plugin for that player.
...How do I do that ?
Well, there is a program called up2dater
...which doesn't work .... google here I come
1 more hour later
Up2dater is not up2date, so it won't work
...Gr8 NOW what do I do,
well there is a text version, called yum
...yum ???? who on earth would name a file that way... anyways
so I run YUM and all it seems to be doing hour after hour is to download headers ... google here I come
1/2 hour later
yes YUM will do that. It needs to download headers each time
....EACH TIME ??
well not really. After the first, it will just download the new ones
... well how many new ones every day ?
Hmm.. around a 100 ?
... So that is 100 new headers each day ?
Well, if you run it more than once a day ?
... But I would hardly install anything more than once a day
You should really spend more time installing stuff on your computer !!!
Anyways 2/3 hours later Yum is done and I can hear music. Praise be to the lord. I log off and go to sleep.
2 hours later ...
I log in, I can't access the network.
I restart
I log in I CAN access the network
I log out
I log in, I can't access the network
I restart... you get the picture...
Google here I come...
1 hour
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
2 hours
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
5 hours
I have no idea what the problem is... Sorry... but try this.. this and that...
10 hous
I uninstall Fedora and download Mandrake
Install time : 2 hours. AND it cannot recognize my monitor. I chose some general monitor and get away.
This time I find out that my display is the one that is messing with my network. So armed with this new knowledge, I go back to ... you know where.... google here I come...
1 hour later...
Sorry never heard of it
12 hours later
Sorry never heard of it
24 hours later
I don't know
48 hours later
YOU still haven't figured it out ? You must be retarded man.
Ok then I figured out a way. Not a solution but atleast a work around. I found out that if I restarted the Xserver instead of logging off (for those not that Linux savvy, it is like not too far from getting a new car each time you wanted to fill gas.) However I find that if I do it too many times, the X server doesn't like it and decides to pull tricks on me. That is what these guys call a "known bug" which makes it all ok , I guess.
THAT is when I decide that enough is REALLY enough. I decide to install windows.
1 hour later
I am done, I can watch movies, play songs, type this blog and do whatever else I want.
NO WONDER people use Windows
----update : 10.05.06 : I have now been (for the past 4 months) been exclusively using Linux ... :-D .. men change.. i will come up with a "No wonder people use Linux" soon :-)
nn
Friday, September 24, 2004
Inspiration Comes Standard
A friend recently caught me on chat, no not the kind of friend you don't want to get caught on chat by, this guys was one of the few I-don't-mind-getting-caught-on-chat-by friends of mine, anyways, to make a long blog short, this guy catches me online and asks me to inspire him to write his blog which, in turn, ended up reminding me that I need inspiration to revive my blog which has been lying dormant since the start of the end of august. (I wanted to say, start of time, there but then I though Mr and Mrs Adam might have a difference of opinion on that).
So to come back to the point, which has to be first found, by the way, that(not the point, but my friend's request for inspiration) got me thinking about the recent ad from Chrysler that goes along with a catch phrase like "Inspiration comes Standard", which in turn got me thinking about inspirion, which I believe is a new laptop from HP/Dell, which brings up this question of how dumbly people name laptops. I mean, who on earth would call a laptop inspirion, it bloody sounds like some medicine I would take for my headache. As in, I had a bad headache so I went and took a couple of crosin and inspirion tablets.
In either case, that brings me to the topic of headaches. I have come to accept headaches as a part of my life, headaches come with the job. In fact, most people have come to accept headaches as part of their existence. So much so, that I strongly believe that headaches should come as a part of the job description, like "Great pay, benefits package and a set of specialty headaches, specifically designed with our employees in mind".
Well that was that, I just realized that once I started blogging, I have a million things that happen in my life that I think I ought to blog but don't because of the terrible way in which the mind works, which to make another long blog short, (not another blog, but another use of the same phrase!!!!) is to forget everything that you need when you need it.
Anyways before I end up making this blog too long after all, because each time I republish this blog, blogger.com warns me in a very concerned manner "This will take some time especially if you have a large blog"; I think I should stop.
Adios
Naveen
So to come back to the point, which has to be first found, by the way, that(not the point, but my friend's request for inspiration) got me thinking about the recent ad from Chrysler that goes along with a catch phrase like "Inspiration comes Standard", which in turn got me thinking about inspirion, which I believe is a new laptop from HP/Dell, which brings up this question of how dumbly people name laptops. I mean, who on earth would call a laptop inspirion, it bloody sounds like some medicine I would take for my headache. As in, I had a bad headache so I went and took a couple of crosin and inspirion tablets.
In either case, that brings me to the topic of headaches. I have come to accept headaches as a part of my life, headaches come with the job. In fact, most people have come to accept headaches as part of their existence. So much so, that I strongly believe that headaches should come as a part of the job description, like "Great pay, benefits package and a set of specialty headaches, specifically designed with our employees in mind".
Well that was that, I just realized that once I started blogging, I have a million things that happen in my life that I think I ought to blog but don't because of the terrible way in which the mind works, which to make another long blog short, (not another blog, but another use of the same phrase!!!!) is to forget everything that you need when you need it.
Anyways before I end up making this blog too long after all, because each time I republish this blog, blogger.com warns me in a very concerned manner "This will take some time especially if you have a large blog"; I think I should stop.
Adios
Naveen
Saturday, August 28, 2004
dothis, lungis and more
I just realized how racially discriminatory my last blog was. I was talking about stuff like lungis dothis, mallus and other things without realizing that most of the people who read this blog may not understand what this is all about. Yeah right. Most of the people who read this blog are me. However, it is not right to do such things in a blog (such thing being defined as being discriminatory) and hence this glossary of terms.
Mallu : short for malayalee, a native of the southern state of India called Kerala.
Onam : our annual festival which is the root cause of all this trouble anyways.
Lungi: A long piece of cloth tied around the waist in lieu of trousers, traditional casual wear for malayalees and tamilians (our neighbours in terms of states) and some others
Dothi : A long piece of cloth tied around the waist in lieu of trousers, traditional casual wear for malayalees and tamilians (our neighbours in terms of states) and some others.
oh... oh... wait a minute that didn't go too well did it ? Well you see the difference between a dothi and a lungi is that a lungi is usually colored in all sorts of irritating colors while a dothi is always whit.e. This means that a lungi can be hardly worn as formal attire but a dothi can. In fact most of true malayaless never wear a pair of trousers. The dothi is more than enough for most of us.
Ok back to our glossary
kurta pyjama: Another traditional attire, albiet this time it is more for the northern states, though it is gaining in popularity nowadays in the southern states but make no mistake, in mallu land the dothi still reigns supreme.
macha: form of address for any one you don't know the name of ; also form of address for anyone you know the name of.
pal payasam : sweet dish, rice pudding of sorts, milk based
pal : milk
payasam : go figure
well i guess that leaves us in good shape... so till more trouble happens...
naveen
Mallu : short for malayalee, a native of the southern state of India called Kerala.
Onam : our annual festival which is the root cause of all this trouble anyways.
Lungi: A long piece of cloth tied around the waist in lieu of trousers, traditional casual wear for malayalees and tamilians (our neighbours in terms of states) and some others
Dothi : A long piece of cloth tied around the waist in lieu of trousers, traditional casual wear for malayalees and tamilians (our neighbours in terms of states) and some others.
oh... oh... wait a minute that didn't go too well did it ? Well you see the difference between a dothi and a lungi is that a lungi is usually colored in all sorts of irritating colors while a dothi is always whit.e. This means that a lungi can be hardly worn as formal attire but a dothi can. In fact most of true malayaless never wear a pair of trousers. The dothi is more than enough for most of us.
Ok back to our glossary
kurta pyjama: Another traditional attire, albiet this time it is more for the northern states, though it is gaining in popularity nowadays in the southern states but make no mistake, in mallu land the dothi still reigns supreme.
macha: form of address for any one you don't know the name of ; also form of address for anyone you know the name of.
pal payasam : sweet dish, rice pudding of sorts, milk based
pal : milk
payasam : go figure
well i guess that leaves us in good shape... so till more trouble happens...
naveen
Onam
Onam comes once a year. Trust mallus to make a festival just for a meal... :-) well it is not really just that... but that is about all that happens nowadays. There is actually a saying in malayalam that roughly transalates to "even if you have to sell your house, you still must eat well at onam" Anyways today was onam for us. I discovered that I can actually cook decent level mallu tasting food. I cooked quite a bit and also made a pal payasam. If I can say so myself, it did turn out quite nice. Well I guess that makes me a nice "kushinikaran". If you didn't understand what that meant, well then you probably don't understand what Onam means either. In short you are not a dhothi tying, mustache sporting, mallu.
Which brings me to another point. Very few people in the country realise the difference between a lungi and a dothi. It is depresssing really when you wear one of your best white gilt edged dothis and someone walks by and says, "hey macha, lungi day huh ?" The feeling can only be compared to wearing a kurta pyjama and being mistaken for having worn white jeans.
Well that is that for onam. I hope i remember the recipies when next onam comes. :-)
ciao
Naveen
Which brings me to another point. Very few people in the country realise the difference between a lungi and a dothi. It is depresssing really when you wear one of your best white gilt edged dothis and someone walks by and says, "hey macha, lungi day huh ?" The feeling can only be compared to wearing a kurta pyjama and being mistaken for having worn white jeans.
Well that is that for onam. I hope i remember the recipies when next onam comes. :-)
ciao
Naveen
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Waitresses
Have you ever had this situation when you are enjoying a nice meal at some upscale restaurant in town (which by the way is not something I do too often) with your loved one and are just about to tell her something to the effect of "your eyes remind me of completely solvable integral equations" when you hear a kind of vague buzz in your ear that signifies, without fail, a terrible catastrophe and you turn around to see a smiling matire'd asking you "and how is your meal today". You smile and try to say "fnnn" and hope he will just dissappear.
You turn once again to your food, now struggling to get that energy and courage back into those bones so that you can go back to her eyes and integral equations when "Oh God... not again ... " here comes the waiter with more water... " I dont WANT more water dammnit.... did I ask for more water...?" Read through this entire incident, do you notice me ever even imagining that I would like more water ? So he pours you water and then he pours her more water and you smile and he smiles and then "oh blasphemy!!!!" your friend-soon-to-be-girlfriend smiles at him....it has been so long since she smiled at you... maybe I should stop all this and be a waiter pouring water.
Anyways, so, now we have more water than the great lakes. Thank you very much. Can we now please go back to my love life ?
For the fourth time this evening I open my mouth and begin my treatise on integral equations when "ohhhh.... nooo.... ", here comes the waiter with the menus asking us whether we need deserts. YES I need a desert, can I get the top slice of Sahara please, some place with no water and no waiter.
So now everything is done. The expensive meal has gone by with the maximum amount of conversation happening between me and the head waiter and the minimum between me and mira in front of me. I sometimes wonder why I bring her to these stupid places where you pay $50 a plate to eat some thing you can't pronounce and have conversations with the waiters. I always held the opinion that one shouldn't eat at places where the waiters are better dressed that one is.
With such seething thoughts of revenge in my mind, I went back to the restaurent the next day and ordered, well something I can neither pronounce nor spell and waited. Sure enough here she comes. "How is the food sir ?". I smile with glee only I can comprehend and say " Well there is no salt in the steak, there is absolutely no taste to the salad, the well done steak is almost a moo-ing at me, the wine is flat and the sliverware looks so old that I am afraid to eat with it, otherwise things are fine" and she says " Wonderful, thank you" and walks away. WWOOOOOWWWW Wwait a minute... did she say "wonderful, thank you" and walk away, let me read that again... yeah that is what she did. Now why would she do that..? This is not going according to plan at all. Oh shoot, what do I do now... and that is when i decided that this should go into my blog.
'ave fun
You turn once again to your food, now struggling to get that energy and courage back into those bones so that you can go back to her eyes and integral equations when "Oh God... not again ... " here comes the waiter with more water... " I dont WANT more water dammnit.... did I ask for more water...?" Read through this entire incident, do you notice me ever even imagining that I would like more water ? So he pours you water and then he pours her more water and you smile and he smiles and then "oh blasphemy!!!!" your friend-soon-to-be-girlfriend smiles at him....it has been so long since she smiled at you... maybe I should stop all this and be a waiter pouring water.
Anyways, so, now we have more water than the great lakes. Thank you very much. Can we now please go back to my love life ?
For the fourth time this evening I open my mouth and begin my treatise on integral equations when "ohhhh.... nooo.... ", here comes the waiter with the menus asking us whether we need deserts. YES I need a desert, can I get the top slice of Sahara please, some place with no water and no waiter.
So now everything is done. The expensive meal has gone by with the maximum amount of conversation happening between me and the head waiter and the minimum between me and mira in front of me. I sometimes wonder why I bring her to these stupid places where you pay $50 a plate to eat some thing you can't pronounce and have conversations with the waiters. I always held the opinion that one shouldn't eat at places where the waiters are better dressed that one is.
With such seething thoughts of revenge in my mind, I went back to the restaurent the next day and ordered, well something I can neither pronounce nor spell and waited. Sure enough here she comes. "How is the food sir ?". I smile with glee only I can comprehend and say " Well there is no salt in the steak, there is absolutely no taste to the salad, the well done steak is almost a moo-ing at me, the wine is flat and the sliverware looks so old that I am afraid to eat with it, otherwise things are fine" and she says " Wonderful, thank you" and walks away. WWOOOOOWWWW Wwait a minute... did she say "wonderful, thank you" and walk away, let me read that again... yeah that is what she did. Now why would she do that..? This is not going according to plan at all. Oh shoot, what do I do now... and that is when i decided that this should go into my blog.
'ave fun
Monday, August 23, 2004
blogging a blog
Ok, before we begin this business of blogging this blog, let me tell you the reason for the title of this blog. I have been an absentee blogger for too long. Which as any blogger would tell you is the situation of most bloggers in this cyber universe anyways. I mean which sane minded person would take it upon himself to record daily happenings of absolutely no value to anyone but himself (which by the way is a rare occurrence in itself, the daily happenings being of value to himself that is) in a place on the web where, unless extremely lucky or unlucky depending on the way you want to look at it, no one would even give it a second glance, if at all it is lucky enough to get a first ?
As Douglas Adams would say, the above sentence made sense, if you dont believe me, go back and read it again. That is not the problem.
The problem is the fact that I can't bring myself to blog. Dont take me wrong, it is not that I don't spend enough time browsing through absolutely useless stuff on the internet. It is just that when it comes to blogging it doesn't quite feel like my cup of tea. Which reminds me, I sorely miss that "sp tea" that vague tea shop in one corner of vellacherry (madras, india, for the uninitiated) would make me if I paid him one rupee and fifty paise, roughly the equivalent of 0.03 USD.
There you have it, if you are someone who is reading this blog, which by the way I have no idea why you are doing, then why oh why on earth would you want to know why I miss the sp tea ? If you are interested in such facts, you need some help; and don't expect any from this blog.
Well that was that on blogging, "more later", i guess, is the catch phrase....
naveen
As Douglas Adams would say, the above sentence made sense, if you dont believe me, go back and read it again. That is not the problem.
The problem is the fact that I can't bring myself to blog. Dont take me wrong, it is not that I don't spend enough time browsing through absolutely useless stuff on the internet. It is just that when it comes to blogging it doesn't quite feel like my cup of tea. Which reminds me, I sorely miss that "sp tea" that vague tea shop in one corner of vellacherry (madras, india, for the uninitiated) would make me if I paid him one rupee and fifty paise, roughly the equivalent of 0.03 USD.
There you have it, if you are someone who is reading this blog, which by the way I have no idea why you are doing, then why oh why on earth would you want to know why I miss the sp tea ? If you are interested in such facts, you need some help; and don't expect any from this blog.
Well that was that on blogging, "more later", i guess, is the catch phrase....
naveen
