Happy new year :)

Popular (read codesmith's) demand required I put up a post regarding my experiences during summer. So I decided why not.... (Karwa I'm sorry I'm having to break your trilogy here... but please don't stop... you're doing a mighty fine job :) ) ... but instead of giving you my daily routine, I decided to just drop in a sort of representative post to give you a drift of how things went. 'Cause if you actually look at the absolute core of what my training was, you'll find it to be an epic battle. Between .. me ... and ....... MATLAB (a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder!). Observe:

As I bang my head on the wall that adjoins my computer looking at how a 100 line matlab code can go so terribly wrong that at the end I get a string a NaN for my solution and repeatedly ask every god who isn't deaf why the god forsaken program just won't work, I come to another spiritual enlightenement. The program won't work. Period. I probably have to list that .... that ....... thing ...... NaN.... as one of my ten worst fears. NaNophobia if you may. But the fact remains. So this article will try to be an ode to simply one of the most brilliant software ever. EVER. An ode to Matlab.
My relationship with Matlab started just this summer and judging by things it'll be a summer romance I initiated and now forever regret. Don't get me wrong. In this short time itself we've been through a lot. Negative kelvin temperatures, that .. that Nan thing and errors galore, errors that have me scratching my head for hours on end until I find I ended up missing a ' (the single quote) somewhere in some obscure corner of my program and has caused this otherwise harmless character to also become a source of fear and dread in my weak mind.
Sigh.......
Sigh.......
Sigh .........
Another sigh......
Still another sigh.......
A sigh to end all sighs......
I want to put down the long series of ups and downs I've had with Matlab, from being able to stand it to absolutely wanting to indulge myself in taking the computer apart, wire by wire, screw by screw while it is still switched on (Doesn't help, though ..... it switches off in an instant neway). But I do not find words to describe it....
Sigh........
Sigh........
Another sigh......
A sigh to end all sighs
A sigh to end the sigh to end all sighs.......
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Sigh............

The whispering stentor : The hobbit

Well friends......karwa seems to handle the trilogy quite adeptly. Let me focus on the very beginning, the missing links which will bridge fiction with reality.

Once upon a time a polynesian island was inhabited by troglodytes. Then on a ominous day a visionary from the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia, Russia set foot on the island. He blessed the aborigines to rise from their grotto to build better shelters for themselves. But they had a quarrel with him about the use of walls. During this fallout the protagonist was revealed to be the ancient king of Cyrene (276-250 BC). His deleterious influence was realized and he was marked as a pariah and banished from the island.

After several autumns passed placidly the natives were once again engrossed in celebrating the opulent harvest. The beach was basking golden in the setting sun, the zephyr was playing philanderer with the mood. Suddenly the festive weather came to a doldrum. The veritable yet unacceptable truth dawned on them, HE has returned. Every noise in the milieu subsied and then a husky homily commenced. The inhabitants yelled with trepidition, "MAGAAaaa......". Then the cloud of ignorance engulfed the island and swallowed it into oblivion.


HE has key to every entrance,
HIS whisper entrances you to insanity.
The whispering stentor's askance
Dissolves you and your verity.

The Lord of the Keys - The fellowship

Long long ago, at the time when all this longing business started, there was a long boy. Not that he was born long, but because he was born long long ago, it can be assumed that he was long.

And not so long long ago, he happened to live in a village not very far far away from another village which was far far away from everything else. This long boy who had now become an old short man came to be known as MAGA.

It happened that MAGA was a retired professor who taught some poor unlucky fellows who happened to land up in an institute of higher studies which long long ago was made in the middle of nowhere. Also, long long ago this place had the longest railway platform in the world.

Maga had lots of problems in this world.

The first one was that he was a watchman in his village, and that too a famous one
The second was that he had to carry a hell lot of keys with him, wherever he went.
And the third, one fine day he lost all the keys.

It all happened on that wretched day of 29th August. Maga was explaining his students the steps to be considered while designing a sewage line.

“…and the most important thing is that the number of pigs that you would allow to get inside the pipeline. A safety factor of 2 is to be considered. Proper ventilation is to be provided to take care of the piggies.”

Maga, being from a village not so far far away, was a simpleton. He had no idea of the advances technology had made in this world. He still talked about dbase 3 plus when even the Sardars knew about natural language processing (I do not know either of them).

He was talking about the new revolution in technology, about the fact that now we have plastic pipelines, and that people can calculate the distance between 2 lines very easily (without having to bother about why the formula is as the way it is) and that they have found another way to multiply 2 vectors (Oh god! It was so difficult in his days).

He also told us about a very good company and he forgot what that company makes.

“..dankuni.. They make railway… they make only railway… your project is in fibre glass?? They are making a …. They make railway… I asked them, why don’t you make a… They are very old, very near to Dankuni railway station, walkable distance…”

Not even once did he tell us what the company exactly does or what he asked them to make. He then started explaining about how a site, where an engineer is going to work, be selected.

It should have a river flowing on one side, and a gate on the other. There should be a good cook; you know food is very important. So you should have a good kitchen, a nice office and a cozy bed room. You can have a store, if you want to store some civil engineering equipment, but it’s not a necessity.

Please click on the image to have a better view. I have taken a lot of pains in making it!!!

Then there should be a watchman’s quarter where Maga would live. Of course, he’ll need a dog!! And the dog will have to have a separate house in the other corner! If you wish you can have a bathroom near the river end. It need not be ultra-modern state-of-the-art bathroom. A simple “lota” will do, or you could have a make shift shed. Do not forget to install a lab for our well known environmentalist Dr. AKG. Yes, if you are not mistaken, he was the same guy who brought a revolution in environmental impact assessment by suggesting a pollen emitting factory to be surrounded all around by huge majestic walls, 20 meters in height.

After all this crap and a huge discussion on nothing, Maga left the room.

But he did one mistake. He was not the last guy to leave the room. I was.

He lost his precious…..

To be continued....

Vinci Daa Code - Another taste of Life at bangalore

Well, here I am, survived from my annihilation planned by some anti-social elements this summer, and am very much in one piece.
To start with, let's take Bangalore Rains. They were, it seemed, somewhat "Khafaa" with lele coming down to Bangalore, and wanted him out asap. They had their own plans, and tried their best to Soak Lele amap (as much as possible). But lele stood firmly, beared everything with that 24 * 7 * 365 smile on his face(always present, check anytime), and finally emerged victorious. Believe me, it ALWAYS rained when lele had to leave the office, and that was weekdays, so it never rained on weekends. This went on for two weeks.
Now to partho. We had a good time in the same PG, and since Lele lived far off, and we just a stone's throw away frokm the office, we never had to worry about the Rains. Also, we have a bit different opinion about bangalore, since we seldom had to travel in bangalore, and Lele had to everyday. Again, we had decent food in our PG, which makes our opinion different from Lele about Bangalore.

Finally, me. I had a nice Roomie for these two months, who entertained all of us all along, and at the same time worked very sincerely. Shaunak was just lovely, sometimes annoying, but since we saw a guy, surpassing him in this trait, I was happy with Shaunak.

We had some of the very nice times togather, specially when we watched the movies, and even special is when we watched 2 Austin Powers back to back, and kept on repeating the movie's one liners till our training ended :)

In the office, I was lucky that I got Visual Studio, and was unlucky that I got Visual Studio 97, and had to work in C. Lele did some excellent work, and his resume sort of sent his guide flat( the number of Programming Languages he knew and all), as told by partho.

On the last day, we had some photographs with the office employees( our guides, to be precise), and we left bangalore with a joy filled heart ( the joy of returning to the sweet home).

We enjoyed bangi a lot lot lot lot, and yes, I missed out those three IITK chaps with us in our PG, two of who were in our company only. They gave us a glimpse of the IITK Life( which needs a separate post), and had a good time with us, once again credit goes to Shaunak.

Finally, the title of the post....One of the major things I did in my liesure time at Bangalore was that I read Da Vince Code( In fact all five of us did that at Bangalore only), and then saw the movie ( this one too). One of my punjabi friends, who accompanied me called it Vinci daa Code.(which finally means the same thing).

I also request others to post, specially to Katoch, Karwa, Shravan, Samya, (though he regularly did on his blog, in a different way), and Vaninder (though he kept poking us with mails filled with loads of his programing jibber jabber). All of you, please do.

>> Call of the Big BGLRE <<

Back to KGP at last !

It has been a hell lot of time before coming back to KGP, and during this vacation ( or training for some of us ), I missed this place the most. Well atleast things will be a lot easier this semester, and while some of us are maroing nehles I am content with my satti.

I did my training in Bangalore, and well that had been a really bad experience when that comes to food. I dunno about what Partho / Puspa have to say about that but as per my opinion Bangalore is one hell of a over bloated , over popularized city that can come crashing down anyday. During the initial weeks, I decided that hey I am in southern half of the country, so why not experiment and eat the south indian cusine for a while during the training period. That my friends totally turned out to be a total disaster. I arrived in Bangalore a on Sunday, a day before the training starts. I had expected that Bangalore would be a burner on my wallet, but had optimiustic expectations from the city. I went out on day one searching for a good food outlet. To my astonishment, there were more bars and bakery stores as opposed to the restaurents. I was feeling very hungry, so I entered a bar cum restaurent outlet. Food, ahem, rice was all that I could find. I eat of rice at home, but only rice is not an option for me . Rice seems to be the only input for a cook in Bangalore.

Day two brought more dirt spashing on my clothes with help of the generous rain that filled up all the roads completly. Regarding the rain there is strange co-incidence or shall I say evil intent on part of someone, to deliberately rain when the I step out of the office. The rain altered its time so that no matter how much I vary my check out time it always rained the heaviest when I am most vulnerable to it. Days passed by and this thing repeated with exact precision for 2 weeks straight ! After that the rain got tired of soaking me and rained very intermittently ( at Laaaast) !

The weather in Bangi was always pleasant no matter what time of the day it might be. This was the only plus point that I can find that Bangalore as a city has to offer. I asked one of the employee about the weather out here, and this is what he said - " Bangalore has a quite pleasant weather, but ten years back it had a weather of its own ". Sweating in Bangalore is strictly prohibited.

Our training was also of topsy turvy experience. The most comical and stupid thing was about the way the company protected the company's source code and how you can get a file from the World Wide Wide Webbbbbb. The statistics say that to transfer a file of any size, any content, to your computer from WwW will take you approximately 1 day of work.

This roughly what I did this summer and it would really nice if you do post your comments to this ( or otherwise I shall roast your email !!! And Haunt You Until I know What You Did this Summer )

Minor assignment..

After successfully defending ourselves from the pernicious JNB and scads of trouble regarding the aggravating group project the endsem looks like a minor assignment. I wish you all the best for your endeavours for the final frontier. It is nice to see that the laziest member of my group took the initiative to create this platform, I hope it will help us to stay in touch and share pleasent moments when we are away from each other.