Not everything can be captured

Somethings need to be felt as not everything can be captured in a camera. Esp a scene like this: mighty ganga below, a thin layer of fog floating above in the atmosphere, feeling the cold air on the face in a moving train on a bridge above and and orange morning sun in the horizon. Add few birds around and ofcourse trees and green fields around the river. What i felt was a thousand times greater than what came in the picture (which i 'll upload later).
This is more of a long tweet than a blog. Is this what is called micro blogging?


Edit: Here I finally upload the pic or whatever came of it from my mobile camera.

Finally moon!

I was able to get some moon pics but it happens that getting a good image is difficult. Getting an image of moon requires full zoom plus a very slow shutter speed. And if you want it with the least ISO then even the slowest shutter speed! So getting a pic with a blur in it isnt that difficult to get. Now I know that I dont have very steady hands but I got most of the images blurred even with a tripod! Maybe the wind or maybe my stomping around was enough to give that blur!

Well here are some pics that came good enough to be posted:

On 22nd even the best pic is with some (acceptable?) blur!


And this pic is just for the yellowish tinge on clouds thanks to (once again) the setting sun!

Moon and setting sun existing peacefully. A much better pic would come out of (full) moon and rising sun. But as I said am too lazy to get up so early in the morning.

And here is the video of the white tiger in zoo whoso pics are there on picasa and whose blog post I forgot to write :D

(its 30 mb and taking a hell lot time to upload here on blogger)

HIMYM and Friends

How I Met Your Mother

Friends

Well have watched part of both of the above series (more of HIMYM percentage wise :) ) but enough of both of them to know whats going on! Friends is from 94 so direction wise and location wise it looks kinda old. While himym look fresh both in terms of characters (much more beautiful) and dressing style.

Both the series revolve around the same concept of presenting the life of group of friends living together. Basically it can be classified as romantic comedy with less of romance and more of comedy.

Well i like himym better as it keeps bringing more characters so provides a little bit of change. Also its more of present times and mostly because its actually a narration. So gives a different kind of presentation than any other series.

And with himym and friends coming back to back on TV from 11 pm to 1 am I get a nice timepass :)

PS: going to watch HIMYM S5E01 just after finishing this post :)

Night pics

Well only birds dont play truant. Went at night wishing for some moon pics. But yes the moon was absent. Being a day after the Eid, I was expecting a nice slice of moon but I guess due to clouds got nothing! Well anyways here are some pics that I took while trying out the night capabilities of my camera. Landscape mode for night sucks. So had to go manual. As is given all over the net (and which I found out later) z980 is good enough for high ISO settings. And in smart mode it chooses high ISO. So instead of high ISO in manual mode I opted for slower shutter speeds (was written as 6" - wonder what it menas) but took about 3-4 seconds of shutter spped (was trying to hear shutter open and close by keeping my ear close to the camera!). Obviously with such shutter speeds I was using the tripod without which all I would have got is a set of blurry pics!

The view which I have taken many times during the day now taken @ night. Mind you its 9:30 pm pitch dark and no flash (obviously no flash for landscapes).


A little darker pic of my street.


No mood so had to be content with a star :P



The first pic is in manual mode, second one in the night landscape mode provided by Kodak guys! You can be your own judge as to which one is better!

Another set of pics!

Yeah I know its getting monotonous posting similar kind of pics again and again but currently thats my only timepass at home so I havent got anything else thats interesting enough. Unless ofcourse if I start posting travian stuff :P

So well today I wanted pics of flowers but as they are scarce during this time of the year I had to settle for birds and finally for the sun (thankfully it wasnt a setting sun today!).

Whole set of pics can be seen @ http://picasaweb.google.com/aug21st/CamTest

So today I first clicked around the birds that were sitting in the lawn downstairs instead of going to the rooftop directly.

Thats what I call timing! Was just in time to click before that bird disappeared behind (inside maybe) that tree.

The only flower that I was able to find in my house at this time. And it is the size of my thumb!

Just as I was packing up saw this bird sitting just above my head :)

Again showing off the manual focus with focus on the leaves and building in the background!

The sun was too bright for me to even observe the clouds with my naked eye! Had it not been for the clouds it would have been just an ordinary pic.

More pics

First of all the pic of my camera. Taken from my 3 mp camera phone so you can expect some pixelisation. Well the camera model is Kodak Z980 and this pic is taken with full 24x optical zoom:

Now today I was more interested in bird photography. I was interested but can hardly say the same about the birds. Forget about any flying shots or group pics it was so damn difficult to get any close up of any bird. Maybe I was a little past their flying time or they are camera shy..watever here are the results. The whole collection is also uploaded on picasa @ http://picasaweb.google.com/aug21st/CamTest. Putting up some better pics here too:

Now this is one of the rare occasion when the bird was sitting on my rooftop. It was just thirsty and was looking for water overflowing from the tank :)

While sitting on the roof I tumbled backwards getting this pic. Thats only cause of my slow reflexes and the time it takes in manual mode to get focus and proper brightness etc!

Another one on my rooftop. The background was varied collection of clothes hanging in Girls PG ( :P ) so had to brighten it as that multicolor backgroud hardly justified this bird's beauty.

Now here am just testing the shutter speed. Taken at 1/2000 shutter speed which I guess is equivalent to 1/2000 of a second. Whatever I had to set a very high ISO to get any picture at that shutter speed (and I have no idea what ISO is).

Now ofcourse some sunset pics (as they are the only pics that come real good).

In the last pics you 'can' notice that I was using manual focus and focused on the nearby mobile phone and hence the blurred effect of the background :)

Will obviously keep posting more pics as long as this hobby lasts!

Posting the pics of my photography session yesterday evening. Tried some stuff using manual settings thought apart from exposure I wasnt able to understand anything else :P

First of all the pics showing off the zooming capabilities-

The above building is approximately 200-300 mts from my house as in crow distance. Now am really bad at approximating distances so it can be anything but the distance am putting down in next few pics will be relative to this one :D

Yes I love the sun!

That would be approx 50 mts from my house.

A billboard some 300 mts away from my house. maybe 200..not sure! Using digital zoom here and yes I dont have a steady hand.

No idea about the distance as it was high up in the sky. Used digital zoom too and was somehow able to grab this kite in this frame!

Now some pics where I tampered with manual settings. In this set of 3 pics all taken at the same time I played with shutter speeds. In others test case I played with aperture without fully understanding its significance and got some not so good looking pics.

Now some pics which just came good without any special significance..and yeah most of them related to the setting sun (will have another session today probably during that same time..am too lazy to get up early in the morning for rising sun!)

Theres also a video with nice resolution but thats a tad bigger for my net connection to handle (~125MB) to skipping it for now. And anyone who can give tips for photography is most wlecome!

Women in army-Gender bias?

This post is just an opinion on the newslink (obviously of TOI):
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5028294.cms

And especially for this particular remark:

"We have doubts on why you should do it for male officers and not for the women. Why are they treated differently?" the court asked.

Well am not a gender biased person or anything but one thing I firmly agree on that on an average men are physically stronger than females. Now you can point out 100 exceptions but I assure you those number of exceptions will be quite finite (maybe even countable). So for any job that is a physical job I will be biased towards men and for most jobs against women too. And especially for army I find no reason why women should be preferred for killing other person and living in tough conditions over men?

As I said am not gender biased so dont apply the above principle to any other kind of jobs thats just skill, intellect or a routine job that doesnt require anything. Its just for jobs that require physical strength. For those who contest this claim also or want to give some examples here is my suggestion: watch finals of any sport that has different section for men and women and compare the record time or anything. Be it athletics, tennis or any other sport (can leave out gymnastics here probably...not sure).

Another thing is that for those women who really want equality should expect no concessions for being a women (like claming mahila seat in bus or expecting etiquettes like opening of door for them or whatever). This is the same principle of reserved categories wanting equality and wanting concessing because they are from that caste at the same time. If you want to be considered in the same level then you should play on the same field. Only till the time being you want to get to this level you should have concessions (for the reason the reservations were implemented to get the scheduled class at the same par).

Just my thoughts no offence here. I certainly like women :)

Austerity-the new buzzword!

This austerity thing is dominating the headlines be it thanks to politicians living in 5 star hotels or Rahul Gandhi travelling by train and inviting stones at himself or maybe Shashi T tweeting around! Whatever be the reason with congress high command sticking to this new keyword its bound to remain that way.
Firstly I have usually been against this austerity stuff (not that i have much to spend around) but have been against the hue and cry that was raised when Mallya gifted a jet to his son (did he?) or Mittal married off his daughter in some style. I believe they have right to spend as much as they want considering the fact that they have worked hard for it. Of course while not hurting anyone (sentiments dont count please). But in case of politicians there is a whole new aspect involved. Can a person who is living his life comfortably really understand the problems of the poor? I know i can give a hundred arguments against that statement but still its a much better argument than of some private people spending money.
What I want to talk about though is that is the government sure that this austerity drive is saving money instead of incurring more expenditures? Lets take the case of Rahul Gandhi going by train instead of a chopper or plane. Savings because of tickets would be minimal compared to the cost of security involved. Read somewhere that police was involved to provide security along the entire route? (dont ask why still stones were pelted at him if you know how Indian police works) Now compare that to him going in a chopper in which case the security agencies are clueless about his whereabouts till he lands (YSR death informed us about this security system).
Leave the whole security thing lets talk about productivity now. I atleast believe that even the most incompetent minister would have work to do most of the day. Just going through all the papers without doing anything new would keep him busy. Now how can you expect person travelling in sleeper class to go through all the files. Is the savings in ticket worth that much amount of time?
Congress party instead of showing solidarity with all the drought affected people and get down to their level try working harder and get them to your level. Or is it that all hope is lost for the latter condition?
And Shashi T: think before you tweet :P

"About Me"

Found a very nice about me while browsing through Orkut profiles (birdwatching watever :P ). Agree with most of them!

i like 99 more than 100.

i like it when my hat is just about to blow away with the wind.

i like the feeling of a long-awaited bath.

i like acting sleepy.

i like being able to tell a mosquito just by feeling it on the skin.

i like sitting cross-legged on a chair.

i like it to face the wind with closed eyes and walk towards it.

i like it when I'm sitting in veggies and a leaf falls on my table.

i like the fireflies to fly over water bodies.

i like an empty mind.

i like most of the people I say Hi to on the street.

i like trying to listen to a song playing somewhere far off when I'm trying to sleep.

i like it when my head expands to take in a bright and fresh evening.

i like to barely miss the target of my water balloons in Holi.

i like the perfection of just the slightest imperfection.

TOI - Tabloid of India

Well TOI has always been fascinated by beautiful girls and it probably pays it photographers double to get that 'hot shot'. It has been the trademark of TOI since quite some time.

These days it was fascinated by Gay Movement. Every news related to gay's is on front page. And has been covering gay parades all over the world. Thats when one of its photographers found this picture:

Now maybe this girl is a guy or vice-versa, but I think this time TOI has gone too far. It should have some respect as a national newspaper.

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/4720508.cms

Civil Services Bill, 2009

Article from TOI

Pros:

• Will take out such moves that are currently being seen in UP. CM wont be able to transfer officials at will.
• Will involve Opposition in such appointments. I have always believed that appointments of posts such as EC, CBI Chief, Supreme Court Judges (they are still decided by a panel) and of posts like Auditor General should be done with consensus. I know for consensus it may be that there is no appointment if Opposition plays a destructive role but it will also ensure that these bodies remain independent. It could be done with say 75% majority with no party allowing 'whip' in such cases. So that even honest members in destructive parties can help in breaking a deadlock. And I believe that more than 75% of our MP's are good enough. Its another matter that just the bad ones keep showing their faces in public.
• Better criteria for appointment for top posts.

Cons:

• Directly conflicts with the federal structure of India. Centre having say in administrative tasks of states.
  
• Administration is there to assist the CM in its working. With CM bound by these rules in administrative postings it may not be able to perform to its full potential.

What can be done is:

• Newly elected government should have right of transferring any official without any rules.
  
• Central body should not be too much involved in the process. And in any case it should not have the final say. This is to ensure that centre does not take over the state.
  

Better Times!

Well going by the present results I just feel that maybe world is heading in a better direction. If not the world then definitely India.

No its not about the sensex gaining 15K or our percapita income rising t0 300$ but its about the way people are using the system.
First and most important the elections. Ok I am happy that Congress won but more than that I am happy that efficient governments were rewarded. Be it JD(U) in Bihar, BJD in Orissa or Congress in Delhi and Andhra. Here they won elections only because of their efficient working. Majority voted for them because of their performance. No comments for Gujrat cause I just can understand them but yeah they voted for BJP for development and transparency (I can write a whole post on that and debate all day long so just leaving it there).
The point is that people even in rural area not just voted for caste and religion but for development. And this directly resulted in less number of criminals being selected.

Another point is freedom of Election Commission, Judiciary, media and acts like RTI in has 10 years or so have given much more confidence in the system.
Also number of steps that are being doled out to strengthen Social security can bring about the biggest development of this country by erasing or reducing poverty. Who will be poor if everyone has assured job no matter if its menial, gets food at low cost even if its not much and has a roof. This may not bring about the desired change but it will give confidence to people to go into new areas. Like if everyone has food and roof then even a poor may start sending his children for education. Even poor will start accessing the health facilities provided by the government. And this can bring the change.

Next is the speech of Obama in Cairo. I always wondered why cant politicians be direct in saying what they feel. Do they themselves lack the convictions in their own beliefs? Do they themselves feel that what they feel is incorrect even according to themselves? But for the first time I had someone saying out what he truly feels. Ok he didnt exactly apologise for Iraq or Israels attack but maybe he doesnt feel like apologising. And who would want to criticize one's own army. But even though he defended Israel he spoke for Palestine. Standing in Egypt he talked of democracy, women's right and other things of which diplomatically he was warned against. He talked of not leaving Afghanistan, of again attacking terrorist hideouts if necessary. But in the same line he talked of Peace and of talking their way out of misunderstandings.

I know that I am being too optimistic maybe cause still the world is suffering may it be attacks in Pakistan or even India. Just read that a Major died today in J&K encounter. So everything is ofcourse not peaceful. But I fell that world is heading in a right direction. Didnt felt the same when both Bush and Modi were re-elected somewhere around 2002.

Role of PM and his Council of Ministers

Who should be PM and who should all be in his Cabinet? Is the whole council supposed to include the intellectual or is it supposed to represent the people?
From what I can infer from whatever I was taught in Civics in my bachpan its meant to be the latter. So then why are Members of Rajya Sabha allowed in this council? As the Members of Rajya Sabha are supposedly best brains of the country (not just best brains but best citizens in general) then why should they be in Council? They dont have the peoples mandate. They have not been elected by the people.

Now this is in reference to the current council. First of all I'd like to clarify few things:

• I know Manmohan Singh is very popular so everybody would like to see him continue as PM.
• Also in this election there was a mandate for Manmohan Singh himself. Officially it cant be said as such because he didnt contest from anywhere but we all know that he was projected as PM so people voted for him (unlike 2004 when people voted for Sonia Gandhi).

The main purpose of the council is to run a country in such a way that is beneficial for the people. As the council is supposedly answerable to public so it is expected that they will do best for people (we all know the reality when all big politicians are corrupt so it isnt true for them. but lets just talk what was the intention of the constitution in ideal scenario!). This council will be helped by the best brain of the country which form the bureaucracy (here again we know how much best brain goes and how much 'best' it remains). But what is happening now is not how the Council should behave. There are demands to make Montek as our Finance Minister. Granted he is a good economist and can handle all his files well. But does he really know what India wants. Not just the Indian Industry but also the poor. Will he run this country like a company for maximum profit (GDP, sensex or whatever be the scale) or will he run such that all sections of the society benefit (although even if he just help industries it will 'someday' help the poor too. probably). Same with Manmohan Singh. Give him a free hand and he will start all the disinvestment and all the international business practices. It was because of both Left and Congress Party leadership that he brought out schemes like Guaranteed Employment and others. I concede that by now he will be wiser and will behave more like a politician with Congress party's future at stake.
But I still believe that Council should only for elected representatives. Who are supposed to take care of the public. If technical knowledge was deemed necessary for such posts then constitution would have provided for some entrance test and not elections. It is upto the people to choose wisely. If they cant do that then it is their loss.
As for all the brains of such topics (take any ministry), they should just be adviser's to the Government. Not the Government itself.

Well these are just my views though I fully support Congress Government :)

Role of Lawyers

Was having this discussion about how the defense lawyer for Kasab was trying to stall his case. For that I got one reply that "Thats the job of Defense lawyer". But is it?
Well I dont know what was the aim of our constitution or what is the legal point of view but here is what I feel:
Lawyers are just means who help the court in reaching the truth. Aim of every lawyer whether prosecution or defense is to find the truth. The only difference is that a prosecution lawyer will hear one side of the story while defence lawyer will hear out accused side of story. This system shall just ensure that judgement is reached without taking both sides of view. Role of defence lawyer is not to defend the client. Its just to help him present his side of the case. Also care should be taken of lawyer-client confidentiality (whatever that might be). It should not be misused to save the client even by performing illegal acts.
As in this case stalling the case by presenting stupid facts is not part of his job.

I dont know what exactly is the law in this regard but this is how I feel.

My experience till now with GSoC and SIP community!

Well exactly 10 days have passed since I seriously started working on the project. It is difficult to concentrate on it when you are meant to be enjoying two months at home, but still have been able to give it some time and achieve some tasks. Well am not writing this post to list out my achievements but just to share my experience till now.

Firstly, coding is the simplest part. But what to code is difficult. Have till now gone through 2 completely different API's (smack and jml) and am currently trying to get a hang of third one (joscar). For the first one (smack) there was proper documentation and such. But for the rest there is hardly any. Eve the javadocs are not updated. So it is a big problem to find out what you need in such API's. The solution ofcourse is to contact developers who till now have been willing to help me for even the simplest problems. Also Googling (wish I had googling skills of Mittal) helps but not always (for jml Google was more interested in teaching me about Java Modelling Language than the api I needed. And yes I donno what Java Modelling Language is!). Then community mailing list helps (for joscar its my only help :) ).

Secondly being part of the SIP community is just great. You can expect real time help from all the developers. For jml it would not have been possible without such help. Also we are encouraged more to be part of the community than just finish our projects.

Next update: after I integrate something (anything!) into SC.

Is this betting?

We all know that betting is illegal in our country.

Now consider a scenario:
Just before elections I organise a quiz like "Test your political knowledge". There is entry fees of Rs 100 and all persons who answer with error of +/-10 (or whatever scale you want to keep like satta) will be joint winners.

Now it is very much similar to betting but will it be called as such?
And is betting allowed with no money involved? Is such a thing even called as betting. Would sure like to know laws in this regard.

Summers with GSoC

Although its a little old news but writing just for the sake of writing. I was selected for Google Summer of Code 2009. This took away the burden of intern away from me (which I was not getting anyways). So well my work would be working for the development of SIP Communicator which is an instant messenger that supports multiple protocols. For this Google would be paying me cool 4500$ (only if I complete the work which shouldn't be too hard). Atleast I will be able to work from the comforts of my home (really missing home right now).

This year a total of 1000 students were selected worldwide out of which 101 are from India and 8 from our college :)
Hope this number steadily keeps increasing (all the numbers may increase). Last year it was 3, last to last just 1. Atleast now its 8.

http://socghop.appspot.com/ Summer of Code Homepage

http://www.sip-communicator.org/ SIP Communicator Homepage

PS: Its not in any way an intern with Google. They wont even know me after giving out the payments.

Timepass: Omegle

These days www.omegle.com is getting popular in our college. Well its a very nice concept of one to one chatting. When you start you are randomly connected to any other person to chat with. There is no concept of nick names or any kind of registration. The main idea is that you can freely chat with strangers without revealing your identity.

Well its a very good timepass as you can be sure that atleast you will have to bear up with many persons before you find someone interesting enough. And if you do find and chat for hours you may find out that the person was a fake :)
So this site is not for someone who get senti easily. It is strictly for fun. And yeah you need to devise ways to confirm the identity of the person (atleast ensure that the country they claim is correct).

One thing that is troublesome is when you are having an interesting chat and suddenly BHU net comes and form and access denied (depicted in omegle as 'connection imploded')
Another thing, its much better to chat at hours when normal BHU net is down to not find another one from our lobby as the person you are chatting with (and yeah in multiple tabs I have even chatted with myself :)) )

Fixed term of Government

This is regarding the suggestion made by L K Advani that a government should have a 'fixed tenure' of 5 years and polls should be simultaneously held every 5 years in months of February.

Now the benefits are very obvious:

• Huge (I really mean huge) decrease in poll expenditure (both of EC and political parties)
• Better voting percentage (February weather along with voting once every 5 years will surely move many more voters out of their homes than now)

Although the benefits may be counted as 2, both of them will have a large scale effect on how government works. First of all model code of conduct days which very much limit governments options will be less. Secondly government will be able to focus more on managing the country instead of campaigning every now and then.

But here comes the problem. How do we really implement it?
Advani said that if a party loses majority then a next government should take over immediately. But what if (as is usually the case) no party has majority? It will lead to hell lot of horse trading with too much scope for corruption. Not a good option.
Also its but obvious that a minority government can hardly work.

Also he said that our government system was following that of Britain and India should adapt the system to its needs. Very well said but it would have been much better if he would have specified atleast some adaptations to atleast initiate a debate. Also I dont thing there is anything wrong with the system, Its just that parties are not good enough to get a majority.

One suggestion that I even gave before and that still can be done is:

• Completely de-link the role of MP with development of the constituency. MP should only be there to raise issues of national importance. Development should only be linked with the State government.
  

I know there can be several arguments against it (I can myself think of many) but still I fell this is one way that can help in improving the current scenario. I feel that all the things that affect day to day life of public should be subject of state. Also more tax should be levied by the state government and not by the central government.

I know that this can have many negative effects but it is one direction debate can be initiated in.

Till then am happy with the current system :)

Few Questions!

There are some questions that I would like to ask major political parties:

Congress:

• Regarding the recent statement by our PM than he will revive economy in 100 days; What steps will he take to do so? Also why were they not taken 100 days before the elections?
• What will be the position of Rahul Gandhi?
  
• Will Tytler come back in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha?
• When will the NSG hubs be active in various parts of the country? What happened to all the equipment that was promised after Mumbai attacks?
• Will IIT's and IIM's just become state institutes considering the fact that they are being opened up in each and every state?
• What steps are being taken by the government for the black money stored in Swiss banks? According to PC some steps were being taken. When will they give results?

BJP:

• How many more Godhras and Babri will happen in 5 years?
• When will India attack Pakistan as being said during campaigning? Will it be another cost-intensive exercise as the one that happened after Parliament attack? What were the advantages of that?
• Do you really plan to build Ram mandir or is it better for your future electoral prospects that it is not build? If you would like to build it then what steps did you take during 5 years of NDA rule?
• Why should a party be given National mandate when it is not even present in major South Indian states?
• How do you plan to improve economy? In five years of opposition there were only walkout's. Never was a single concrete step given to the government that could have helped the country. Will walkout really solve India problems?
• If NDA loses this time then what will be the fate of L K Advani?

Left:

• Will you allow India to do any trade with USA? Or should it be just China?
• Whom did you support during 1961 war?
• Will Arunachal Pradesh still be with India after 5 years of Left rule?
• Will I be able to 'earn' my own money and 'own' lands after 5 years of rule?
• What will happen to someone who echoes his own personal views that are not supported by Left? Will he become an outcast like Somnath Chatterjee?
• Are you pro-SEZ or anti-SEZ?

SP & BSP:

• Will every park be either called Lohia park or Ambedkar park?
• Will police force be disbanded to allow your goons to function easily or will it become part of your gang?
• Currently it is said 40 paisa of every Rupee spent reaches the poor. In your regime what will that amount be?

For all of them:

• When will criminals be in jail?
• When will corruption end?
• When will the government really work of sarva-hitaye?
• When will MP's really debate in parliament? And not just with their bodies but with their minds?
• Will ever a opposition play a constructive role? Or is opposition meant for staging walkouts only?

There may be countless more questions but I can only think of these currently.

Times of India advertisment!

No comments.
After Aamir Khan shouting for Tata sky while reading a news article these are the new ad's on front page of Times of India. Looking more of a tabloid than a national newspaper.

Blogging season @ our lobby

Well something is in the air cause everyone in our lobby seems to be in mood of blogging. Although everyone is blogging on topics that are poles apart but still it seems to be the flavour of the season.

Current bloggers:

Kinshuk baba: Dont ask me to list his blogs cause they are numerous. He still holds the record for mantaining 12 blogs simultaneously and I suppose he still has 5-6 of them.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/01344610750518430564

Dhanendra dhaniya: Just came to know that he mantains 2 blogs. One is private (cant even guess what would be in it) and one is about technical difficulties that you can face and can find a way how not to resolve it there.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/08323067715680264964

Gaurav Kumar: started his blog for writing about his 'life' and programming but later turned into just programming (you need some activity to write about your life :) ).
http://comeoncodeon.wordpress.com

Himanshu dohte: started a blog. wrote two lines. end of story. it was just to promote his mouse and mousepad.
http://m3th0d-dohtem.blogspot.com/

my roomie shanky: naya josh. naya addiction. as you all know he always has loooots of time. started a blog and wrote 10-12 posts in two days. at this pace he will be running out of topics soon (but considering the number of essays we wrote in school days it will surely last few months). topics include his all time favourite dota, sachin and tigers :)
http://shanky-itbhu.blogspot.com

Ankur chimota: started his blog so that more people can pull his leg. and maybe he can record his daily leg-pulling there (will be the most active blog if he does so). on a more serious note his blog contains his collection of cartoons he sketches while sitting in front of the mirror.
http://swattbhu.blogspot.com
as you can notice he is chimota so is bound to make mistakes; forgot one 'i' in between...it was supposed to be swatitbhu but turned out to be swattbhu (and dont ask me why swat cause even i dont know that).

dota-lobby [continued]

http://shanky-itbhu.blogspot.com/2009/04/dota-lobby.html

Please read this post before even attempting to understand this one.

shanky wrote about everyone but forgot about the best player in our lobby: himself.

So I will try to find matching hero for him. Waise to while playing he s able to play with any hero (even if you give him pugna he will become GOD-LIKE), but still we need a hero that matches his personality.

I think the hero that matches him most is axe: strength hero, and the best part that if you try to attack him he will swing his arms, legs in any direction and you will get helix back.

Dream Diet to become like chimota

(chimota)

(dhanendra soni)

Dream Diet of chimota for dhanendra to get fat (personal experience):
Morning 7 am:
3 glass of water
500gm Butter with/without bread as breakfast

8am:
3 plate Idli (6 idlis)
1 glass juice (orange)

10am:
2-4 samosa

12:30 pm:
4 rotis with ghee/butter + rice

4:30 pm:
1 glass juice

6:00 pm:
2 sandwich + cold drink (and no swimming)

8:00 pm:
4 aloo parantha

late night:
3 glass of mango shake

sleep by 11:00 pm

Jai Ho- Hallelujah

First of all who can say that the lead singer is not Indian? With bindi and Indian dress she sure looks like one.

Just saw the Pussycat version of famous 'Jai Ho'. Still cant understand what was the meaning of lyrics. I suppose they were written just to rhyme with the music. No attention was paid to ensure that they mean something. 'Hallelujah' was added after some lines where it rhymed well. Well as the music was to remain the same it must have been a difficult task for 'pussycat dolls' to understand the meaning of the song. Whatever video is nice (in comedy genre I mean). You see pussycat dolls trying to do some Indian aerobic dance (dance step while saying Jai Ho is just too good). As if shouting slogans in some rally or what.

And sometimes in between A R Rahman shows his face just shouting Jai Ho (yeah I know thats what happens in most of the song).

Just watch the video to hear the song while also seeing fresh (and better) faces :)

L(e)M(o)N: summer flavour

In summers Lime drinks have always been associated with freshness (although I associate them more with Vitamin C and hence winters :) ) with traditional Nimbu Paani leading the lot. Before this season there was Limca, 7UP, Fanta Lemon (i think it exists could be wrong). But this summer suddenly all companies have decided to come up with new products.

First I saw Nimbooz by 7UP. It is a non fizz lemon drink. Nice idea but my opinion was that it not only lacked fizz but also lemon taste. Sorry but not giving it another try.

Next was LMN by Parle. This is another non fizz drink but tastes much better than Nimbooz. While on the out can easily substitute it for real Nimbu Paani.

At home I saw another Lemon drink from Catch (is it the same company that made spices?) called Spring Lemon (now they claim its made from pure water of Himalyas....huh). Just checked their website they have lauched new flavours also: Cola and Orange. It is corbonated drink. Not fizz free. It tastes good very much like Limca (I never associated 7UP with lemon. donno why but never gave the same feeling). Need to try their Cola and Orange flavours also.

But my favourite drink at home is Rasna (prefarably cola but can manage with Orange flavour). Rasna also has been around since quite some time (donno how many exactly).

If you come across any other Lemon drink then do inform me.

Emergency ATM PIN

There was this discussion going on among us about the emergency PIN if entered in ATM gives out the cash but also alerts the police. This emergency is meant to be the reverse of your original PIN. This discussion was based on numerous mails that keep coming to our inboxes everyday. During this discussion spawn said that as his PIN is a palindrome what will be his emergency PIN. With that we ended the discussion as it was in all probability just a hoax. But when I checked it on internet then I found that although it has not been implemented anywhere it has been proposed a lot. And for implementing such a step a bill has been passed in the State of Illinois in February 2009.
And yeah if implemented you cant have such palindromic PIN's so spawn you gotta change it whenever it happens in India :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_SafetyPIN_software

Testing Broadband Limits

Was just going through websites of major Broadband providers for Lucknow. Was inspired to do so by new Airtel ad offering 16Mbps.
First of its very good promotional advertising and targets the right audience. Even the website is well made according to that. http://airtel.impatientones.com/

Currently am using BSNL Dataone 750 plan which provides unlimited download at 256kbps for 750 pm. Will be upgrading soon to 1350 one which provides unlimited download at 512kbps for (yes you guessed it right) 1350pm.

While searching for Broadband limits I paid little regard to the 'cost' tag.

For Airtel in Lucknow the maximum I could find was: 2mbps 4GB download (huh) for Rs 777.
There was another one with speed of 1mbps but unlimited usage at Rs 2222 pm.

BSNL Dataone has no unlimited plans for speed great than 512kbs. Thats at 1350 pm. There is another plan with speed of 2mbps and maximum download limit of 20GB (can do with that for 2 weeks I suppose) for 3300 pm (now thats out of my league).

Next I checked was Reliance Broadband (dont trust much of the information provided) but there I found limited plan of speed 4000kbps (yes thats how it is written, they show off the number of 0's) with doanload limit of 7.5 GB at 1499 pm.

At Tata Indicom Broadband, situtation was quite grim. They refuse to provide High Speed net and you just need to be content with 512 kbps which is though unlimited for 1500 pm.

Sources:
http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm

http://airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/Airtel.In/Home/ForYou/Broadband+Internet/Tariffs/

http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in/Communications/rcom/broadband/broadband_con_postpaid.html

http://www.tataindicombroadband.in/access/postpaid/order/post_wl_512_zero.html

Maggi- my fav junk food!

Just saw the new Maggi ad on TV which asks to share your Maggi moments (whatever they might be). Well forget the moments (atleast I dont remember any except yeah going out of hostel at 3 am and having Maggi; if it qualifies then yes it is..whatever), the fact is that since childhood one thing that is still here is Maggi. Whatever memeories I have of my childhood (no matter how small I was), Maggi was there. And I guess it would be true for everyone in my generation atleast (they claim on ad that its 25 years but atleast from my time it was popular). Many variants came (top-ramen, wai wai and many varieties of Maggi itself) but still the original taste rocksss.

And no matter what people say about it being junk food and all that stuff, fact is that it is here to stay. Cause it is easy to make and good to taste.

Well writing this post just for the sake of writing (and because dure wanted something other than politics :) ). This post is not meant to mean anything!

AdSense was close but not good enough

Just tried AdSense in my blog. As my whole blog is filled with word politics it was but natural to expect some ads related to politics. But to my surprise what came out was a full banner of BJP and Advani picture. God! Cant Google see just how anti-BJP I am? Had they shown Congress ads I would have gladly kept them but sadly had to remove the ads the very next minute. Will sign up later after the elections :)

Headlines in my mind

Have been thinking of writing since many days but could not find time to do so (busy playing dota and trying out many more games). Also so many topics were going on with elections around the corner that i was not able to decide which topic deserves my valuable time. So i came up with just headlines instead of a lengthy post. Now first of all am in a train and writing from mobile so dont know how to change paras. Tried html tags last time but they failed. Will try the newline char that is provided in mobiles this time :-).


Hope it works!


Recently went through Times of India editorial (web edition) and found it quite nice. Although I never liked the ones that got printed, web editorial page is definitely wort going again. One nice link is in my twitter updates.


Varun Gandhi got what he wanted (maybe a little more) with his name and pic being used all over and even getting his 'fan club' on orkut. Not a surprise as even Godse has one with over 10k members.


Another editorial talked about how considerate Maneka Gandhi is on topics related to animals but Homo sapiens are excluded. Dare you talk about killing any street dog without inviting her wrath. But its ok if her son wants to kill anyone but animals.


Forgetting the last post got news of positive action from Obama of closing down all secret prisons by CIA. Keeping good to his promises although its but obvious that Afghanistan will take lot of time to heal. Dont personally agree to his policy regarding Pakistan but I doubt he can do much. But still not joining the Rahul Gandhi for PM bandwagon.


Coming to Pakistan its just a matter of time when the country breaks up. I doubt whether at this stage even military in control could save it. Dont understand whether they even want to save themselves or not? But I have little hope that pumping lots of money will solve the problem.


With elections around the corner and situation in Pakistan deteriorating India indeed has strong threat to counter.


But besides terrorists even situation in Assam and in naxal areas is going out of hand. Its easy to counter terrorism but internal issues can easily be contained by sustained development. Whatever!


Nice shoe attack by the journalist but instead of shoe should have used a bullet and instead of Chidambaram could have targeted Tytler. Still dont understand why does congress seek to protect those two. Can never condone Rajiv Gandhi for this very act and hope to see those two serving some time behind bars (am against death sentence so cant say hanged :-().


Good to see some politicians and officers feeling the heat for Godhra riots. Though am sure Modi himself will never feel the same (brainy fellow) this should act as deterrent the next time.


Very strong and positive statements by our weak-looking prime minister. Very courageous of him to admit that minorities are harassed by the police and a very tact comment while rejecting offer of TV debate by Advani.


Similarly found nice comments of Nitish Kumar. Have forgotten what they were exactly but were related to communal ism. Am sure that Lalu and Paswan will be no match for him at least not on topics related to regional development.


Sri Lanka: LTTE needs to be uprooted no matter what. Have heard of policies followed there of 'white van kidnappings' and other atrocities on people of Tamil origin but the fact is that they still have democracy left. Taking up arms is no solution (and having two air forces is too dangerous). This is similar to that of naxals which is in no way legitimate. If their concerns are genuine and if they command such respect (not fear) in their region (which is growing by the day) then why dont they fight in elections. With the area affected by them they can easily get more than 20-30 seats which can make or break government. In Sri Lanka it is half the country.


North Korea: Tested America to the limit. Good or bad only time will tell. Should not in any way lead to any kind of was due to Americas prior engagement (read Afghanistan).


Now some light stuff!


Opinion poll about how much will online campaign affect polls found online. Did not bother to check the results.


Invasive ads of Tata Sky being used on Times of India website (yes i surf it every hour even from my mobile). You open a page and suddenly Aamir Khan starts shouting. Have been startled by it quite many times.


Why is swimming and other sports facilities closed on holidays? Thats the time we need it the most ;->.


Still havent got my voters card. Its another matter that I wont be able to vote anyhow as exam schedule in BHU usually ignore election schedule of Lucknow. Another time. Anyhow there is no one to vote for. I would anytime prefer Congress but my vote would be waste on them in Lucknow. Would prefer Lalji Tandon sans BJP.


Reaching Lucknow so gotta stop writing. Got a lot off my mind :-). And one more thing no comments on spelling mistakes (I made few of them up). Rest your mind if you have read till the end ;-). I need to rest mine after writing so much.


[UPDATE]: Came to know that in Lucknow poll prospects of Rita (Congress candidate) are good enough. Still exams come first :)

Taste of their own security acts

Recently Varun Gandhi was charged under NSA for making inflammatory (dont mind the spelling) speeches. We should remember that it was BJP only that wanted strict (read draconian) laws to tackle terrorism. Post Mumbai attacks it was able to force the government to yield and make new laws (as good as POTA). But our politicians are not angels (hardly human). Their only aim is defeating their opposition and would go to any extent to achieve that. This new law is just another weapon in their arsenal.

What Varun said was wrong and he should be punished (such class of politician should be nipped in the bud including those who divide people on any basis) but in no way should he be tried as terrorist. Even if such laws are made care should be taken that they be used only against external threat not internal. This will at least minimize its chance of misuse. Otherwise as always laws would only be used for suppressing their opposition be it using Emergency, POTA or NSA. It will lead to same results.

And yeah one more thing, first you need to catch the terrorists before applying any law on them. Kasab would be hanged even under the simplest laws. Even without any NSA.

Thank you Supreme Court

I was very relieved to hear the Supreme Court judgment that barred Sanjay Dutt from contesting the coming elections. For those still in dark he was a candidate from Lucknow and wanted a stay on his conviction so that he could contest the elections. He was just part of the tradition in which to escape the law just enter politics. Leave aside his criminal links, what makes him a eligible candidate? I have no doubt that he would have won partly because of lack of strong opponent and because of recent victories of his 'mates' in last election. But I dare them to contest from any village area and then win. From what i have observed lately, people in such area vote for good candidates cause it affects them much more than in cities.
As for the allegations that the current government was reason for such judgment, all I can do is thank them even though I doubt that they have such influence. And yeah hope his wife stands for the election. People may be stupid but not so much that they allow her to win. She wasnt even an actress.

Hype around Rahul Gandhi

Considering the recent hype around him with many sections wanting him to be the next prime minister, I am still confused why is there such a hype. Mostly I hear about such talks from netizens and from tours of Rahul Gandhi in various universities across India. But what has he really done for the country? Take out his youth, his charm, his education and his talks; what has he actually 'done' to be even considered for the post. Are the people now such that they choose prime ministers based on how charming they are? Or is the condition of politics in India so hopeless that any fresh face is welcome? This may be the case for some though I dont personally agree. Similar is the case of Obama. Take out his charm his speeches and what has he really done? Even after becoming the president what significant action has he taken till now? I mean by action something that any normal person (not considering Bush) would not have done. Compared to Rahul I would prefer Advani even though I hate that man. At least he has been involved with country since long (could have been involved in much better way though).
[WRITTEN FROM MOBILE SO DONT EXPECT FORMATTING]

Nice Poem

Poem from movie "10 Things I Hate about You"
I like it a lot :)

I hate the way you talk to me,

and the way you cut your hair.

I hate the way you drive my car,

I hate it when you stare.

I hate your big dumb combat boots

and the way you read my mind.

I hate you so much it makes me sick,

it even makes me rhyme.

I hate the way you're always right,

I hate it when you lie.

I hate it when you make me laugh,

even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when you're not around,

and the fact that you didn't call.

But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you,

not even close

not even a little bit

not even at all.

Testing from mobile

Antitrust Issue of IE in Windows

First the Issue. Here are a few links to clarify the matter:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10144602-75.html
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200904/2807/Microsoft-and-IE-hit-with-EU-antitrust-attack
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/39237

Now the issue is that by bundling the Internet Explorer along with Windows, Microsoft is forcefully capturing the browser market.
Complaints are filed by Opera (as if its used still), Mozilla and Google)

First of all i would like to define some characteristics of a good OS concerning the way it installs:

• It should have as many common programs pre-installed as possible.
• It should install with minimum interruptions. That is should not ask the user every now and then. Unless ofcourse advanced installation is selected.
• It should install in as less time as possible.

Now for pre-installed programs. Imagine a browser where you dont have any browser, no media player, no notepad and not even mspaint. And you can surely forget about all those classic MS-games. And you want security: then somehow access net and get it. No more Windows Defender. Imagine borrowing a pen-drive for a browser, installing everything from Internet. As of now everyone having a computer is expected to have atleast 1MBPS net connection.

Now for interruption. Imagine this, you start OS Installation and a note pops-out: Do you really need MS-Paint? Wont you prefer Adobe Photoshop? and then again in 3 seconds: Why not choose Chrome over IE? Please try that. And next: Which pen drive will you be using? We will be installing specific drivers. And again: Sure you want to play MS-Hearts and not Zapak-Hearts or any similar stuff.... Am sure you will throw away the OS cd. I will.

Next scenario. Your OS comes in 3 Dual Layered DVD's and just a takes 3 hours to install. But yes is a treat when it finally gets installed: You get IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Flock as browsers; MS-Paint, Photoshop, GIMP as paint managers and so on. It does not matter whether you really need the stuff or not. But you get it anyways. Imagine this for a basic user who just wanted a 'simple' computer. And see what he is getting. And consider this that you are paying the cost of those extra DVD's and plus the effort of compiling such software base.

And most important thing: When installing Fedora without net you dont even get Firefox. You just get Konqorer. No one complaining against them. Even with Ubuntu I doubt how much they provide in their single CD.

Options for Microsoft to comply with this ban:

• Include Everything and before every installation you need to choose all the softwares you want from a long list. OS is too stupid to decide for you. This all is considering you havent chosen advanced installation.
• Stop making all the softwares and just make the OS. God help on the day when Firefox and Opera become paid or redundant and you add cost to Windows.
• Just give out a basic version of Windows. No frills service. Am not 'buying' that.

What i think the changes should be:

There be an option of 'Advanced Setup' where you can disable any softwares you dont want. In Basic Setup you get what you're getting now.

And for Chrome and Firefox: Stop whining guys. Those who wanna use your software will. But dont get into such dirty and cheap legal tricks. I use firefox but of my own free will.
And there are still a few sites that require only IE (or say trust only IE) for security purposes. Get your browser compatible for such sites and people will stop using IE. And as for one sentence I read in one of the article: IE offers better features. I suppose it was Netscape which first started this trend by giving out of the box features in both CSS and JS. I think Netscape made JS. Whatever. I dont think you can stop innovation by that. By giving out these extra features you come to know which ones are worth standardizing. Or how else will you get these extra features?

I just cannot 'talk' about sen'sex'

Our computer center(CC) is just too great. As our net goes through a proxy server of CC we cant escape them. And to ensure that internet is only used for educational purposes they have tried their best to ban sites. But the problem is that the method they use to ban sites is by identifying keywords in site address. And keywords include sex, talk( for banning google talk), games etc.
So what this means for me is that while surfing Times of India (which have link to article as heading of the article), I just cant read any news about sensex (coz its somehow related to sex), neither can i read the news article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Talk_to_us_directly_India_tells_Pakistan/articleshow/4108221.cms
coz maybe it connects to google talk.

Also we dont have net from 16:30 to 19:00 coz we are supposed to play during that time and from 00:00 to 05:00 cause we gotta sleep!

Ok even I am somewhat of a control freak but this is too much even for me :)
And yeah I wont be able to follow any news of Commonwealth Games cause they are games!!!!

Till then am waiting for the above link to go to archive when its link address will be changed to some number which will allow me to view it.

Who is better?

Who is better? A corrupt but a dynamic person or an honest incompetent person. This is not only in reference of public servants but in any walk of life?
One answer may be by going into the economics of the situation and calculating the worth of hardworking person and the amount he is bungling.
But that wont be a general answer. From what I think, corruption is the worst thing cause a corrupt person wont stop after having some money. The greed will only grow, and he will be a victim of his past forever. But an incompetent person is also worthless.
So still confused and thinking :)

Watching TV @ home

During these 3-4 days watched a lot of Animal Planet and Discovery.
First of all someone tell Austin Stevens (snakemaster) that snakes can bite yaar. How the heck can he play with them. He is either mad or does not know the meaning of word called 'fear'. Anyways he gives some nice shows (mean snakes).

Next good thing was Discovery Video. 'I love the world' one. Here is the YouTube link for those still unaware of it.

MP/MLA's for development or for parties?

Am still confused on this one. On what basis do we select our MP's or MLA's? On the basis of how they ersonally are or on the basis of which party they represent? Should I be voting for my constituency or should I be keeping national interests in mind? What to do with people who fit the title 'Right person in wrong party'. Should they suffer cause of their party or should party win cause of them? I know ideally it can be said that party is formed from them only so a right person will help form a right party. But this is not the case always.
So what exactly was the 'spirit of the constitution' when creating such a post? What i believe, it must have been for selecting the best people from all over India without any concept of parties or concept of abiding by party decision when you personally disagree. But its obvious that in such a system no leader can enjoy stability. But am sure it wasnt the purpose of constitution to elect puppets for the parties who are bound to it. Especially with Anti Defection Law in place you just cant afford to disagree with your party. But if they only wanted puppets then why have them even. Just ask people to vote for parties and they'll select some person for each constituency.
There was another issue I was thinking about and that was about how to ensure that a person can fight election with a limited amount of resources. It was more of ensuring that a person having more resources dont have so much advantage as a normal person. For guys in college it was like a government decision to make JEE paper such that difference between those going to coaching and those not able to access coaching have minimal difference while attempting the paper. Obviously there will always be a difference, coaching will give some advantage but the aim was to make it minimal. Similarly we need a way to ensure that more resources dont translate into much more votes in elections. Will write about this in another post.
For now still thinking what is the purpose of MP's/MLA's or whether I vote for the parties.
Anyone having any ideas??

Nice website

Was surfing through new sites (mostly of India) when I came across BBC website. It was good to visit a website where you can choose what news you want and everything. It was on the lines of iGoogle where you can choose all the tabs you want. And this too without any login and stuff. Maybe they store it in cookies or donno about it but a good concept :)

Similarly I came to know of Gmail Chat Bot of IBN from my friend in college. It mostly covers Indian news and instantly provides news updates for major topics. You can just add it on gmail/gtalk im@ibnalerts.com

Deadly Roads

I was just looking at the statistics for deaths due to road accidents. Now it was no surprise that they are high enough in India given the way DL can be obtained and lightings on the road. But yes I was astonished when I saw the death toll in USA with so advanced technologies and where I know for fact that people do fail to get DL.

Car Crash Stats: There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes.

Now this is from 2005 but even in 2005 USA was advanced enough. So we can be certain that cause of road accidents is not lack of technology. Then how can they be tackled. Because 45000 is a large number. If they can spend billions for the killing of few thousand in WTC 2001 then they must surely be doing something for 45,000.
And what does it mean for us? If we anywhere fear death then we must fear it the most on roads. Cause this is the only place where most people die, I guess for most of the countries.

LINK to the page which I found. Seems genuine enough.