Exam 2

29-04-09
Exam: Data Mining blah blah

Alarm was set for 4. I wake up at 6. I quickly dress up and catch my bus. I open the textbook my mind refuses to mine the data.Maybe the heat's messing it up. It gives a hardware exception. I doze off.
I grab a quick breakfast at the canteen and settle down under the trees for a quick revision.

The exam starts at 10:15. Thank God, the questions are all fine. bad luck,those who got Set 4.
I do my best to finish in time. I Finish 3 questions before I realise there are just 40 minutes left. I scribble thru the next two and have no time time left for corrections.

The admin guys pull off another cheap one this time. They force us off the bus for not carrying passes. That chairman prick is getting on my nerves. They bloody know we've paid the fees. Why the drama? Ok I agree we're supposed to be carrying
passes. Hey, It's exam time and who the f remembers? They could be a lil broad minded, nai?

Exam 1

27-04-2009
Exam: Human computer Interaction

With each passing moment my heart beats faster, sweat trickles down my forehead. I am nervous, five minutes for the exam to start...
The invigilator is shuffling the answer booklets, the question papers haven't arrived. We all wait with bated breath for the dreaded yellow envelope.
I check my watch. Three hours and the torture will be over.
I spent the whole last night in front of books. Still I am nervous,why? 400 pages of technical jargon and 8 hrs to study,dats why.
I wonder if I remember atleast 10 % of what I read.
At last the question paper arrives. I scan thru it, mashaallah I know 5 ! I fill the OMR sheet which takes a good 10 minutes and start with the first question. I try to write in my best handwriting, I take care with with each word. I draw neat diagrams and when I am done I realise I took over 45 minutes to answer one question ! 4 more to go ! second question takes another 40.
Now I am panicking, I not paying attention to my writing at all,
I finish the paper just in time for the warning bell. Never took this late to write a paper. I submit the paper and step outside to the inviting cool breeze. One exam down, five to go.

Dreams....burning up

Listen to Burning Up original mix by Kuffdam and travel back in time. Put on a good pair of earphones and open dat your school album.
Nostalgia at it's peak I tell ya.

Then take the journey one step furhter with Dreamcatcher by Andy dugoid.

Bliss

Run and u'll never escape...

Like I said before I need distractions during examinations and what better way to spend(waste) time than movies.
I opened IMDB and scanned the top 250 list.
Bored that I was I decided to go for Cidade de Deus(City of God),a Brazilian movie by Fernando Meirelles on gang warfare and drugs.

First things first. I didn't like it. Car chases,gun fights, stunts are all fine, but this movie has violence that can make your stomach churn. We have a gangster who's just caught two little kids about eight years in age,stealing his dope. He shoots one in the heart and the other in the leg so that he can tell the others. Outright disgusting. Drugs,booze and violence(truckloads of it) make this movie. Of course there is this story of the buddng photgrapher who's seen it all. The streets of brazil, he sweaty,unkempt gangs,muggings,killings,deals -hell,
can this be happening for real? apparently it is - and a lot worse at that. The movie does not show a burning tire excution. Thank God.

City of God is actually a city that god forgot about and the devil took over.
Ok, enough ranting. Actually the movie is beautifully shot with excellent camerawork. the story is OK too.It won some 45 awards and is featured in some very prominent lists including top 100 movies of all time by TIME. It's just that I am not into 'reality' movies. I'd rather watch Matrix. After all movies are for entertainment, let's leave the real stuff to Nat Geo.

facts galore

I have always been fascinated by strange and wierd facts and spent a lot of my library time in childhood reading fact books.
Mysteries,spoofs,mistakes,greatest,highest,... They make for a really informative way to spend time.
In my recent post, I talked about oddee.com.
Now I've found an even bigger one, probably the grand daddy of them all www.listverse.com
From 10 costliest toys to the most tragic events and even some really disturbing articles,which are onot for the weak at heart.
I donno how many articles they've got but I've just finished with the 90th article.
very entertaining.

My youtube list:

-Coffee & TV by Blur. superb video with a very sweet theme
-Hello by Lionel richie. a classic song of its time
-Hum bewafa by instant karma

TranceUpdate

I was listening to asot 374 today. the first track A different feeling is already on my favorites list.

the third track Casa Grande by EDX is just awesome

DIY laptop cooler

My HP 2133's getting so hot, I could probably iron a shirt or two with it. The heat was getting so unbearable I knew I had to do something about it. The metal exterior of the HP is geeting warm even when the power is off.
Laptop coolers are selling well these days and I saw quite a few at CTC on my last visit. They come fittted with two fans that blow the warm air out thru side vents. Now lazy that I am and given the acute need for a cooling solution I found a rather cheap but effective method. Read on.

Passive Cooling : In passive cooling, we cool a hot body, for instance a processor using a large surface area on the heatsink and no fans. U might have seen some graphics card that have 'passive' in their unit names. They use bigger alumnium heatsinks for heat dissipation and do away with fans.

Guess what I used to passive cool my laptop, an aluminuim cooking vessel !
I used it for an hour or so and found that it absorbed most of the heat from the laptop(the flat 2133 bottom fits perfectly to the vessel base). It sure looks odd but serves my purpose.
Wish I could do some benchmark tests to measure the increase in performance. Knowing 2133, It's better not to coz the results won't impress anyway. My highly tweaked xp is limping along.

Here's how it looks. An odd combination isn't it?

My Indicom connection was down yesterday. So, no posts.

Sleepless in Hyderabad

eeeyuk!! It's so goddammed hot! I am wet all over, the humidity is gettin unbearable. How I wish I had an air cooler in my room. I am trying my best to study well for tomorrow's exam and I tell ya my towel is literally wet from all the sweat.
The torture continues throughout the night too. Nothing more worse than a spell of heat wave coupled with exams. makes for a real PITA combination. By PITA I mean....pain in...
It's almost 10:30. need to get on with my studies and forehead wiping. My palms are all sweaty so I'll sign off for now.

I'm blogging too much

I know what you must be thinking. Why so many posts. well, exams are are here. what better way to distance yourself from textbooks? youtube and blogger are my "weapons of mass distraction" now. which reminds me, check out this awesome video. It actually brought tears in my eyes, although i'm no fan of reality shows. If you feel the same, please lemme know. This video has more than 44 million hits on youtube. and 100,000 comments- most of them positive.

Sony Ericsson K770i : a very late review

I am a gadget freak, but I don't have many gadgets to boast of. I have a small collection of daily essentials that keep me going. There are some people who change gadgets on a weekly basis. I can't afford such luxury and I don't like it either.

So here's my Sony Ericsson k770i. My uncle brought this or me from Saudi Arabia for 770 riyals, roughly Rs 11,000. I haven't seen this model anywhere else in India yet. I guess it wasn't launched here.

Here's a quick look at the specs:

- 3.2 mp camera
- 3G compatible, i donno the version
- 1.8 inch 262k color screen
- Music player(walkman ver.1)
- Truffle brown color
- Blutooth with A2DP
.
.
.



I've used it for a full 4months now and I find the phone exceptional.
It looks very sleek and sobre,the brown colors lends it an expensive feel.
The 3.2 mp camera takes exceptional shots but the white LED is wasted.
Night shots turn out noisy almost everytime but the overall image quality is way better than the competitors,thats for sure.
K770i also comes equipped with secondary call camera which is u as of now useless as there is no (affordable) 3G service in India. it serves well as a mirror though.

the call quality is great but the backplate heats up during long calls and charging.
Text messaging is very easy and the keypad very responsive.

The proprietary connector has already started giving me problems. hope they do away with it. Bluetooth is a good alternative for data transfer.

All in all a very capable camera phone. There are some quirks but not a big problem.

UPS
-looks
-camera(It's even got a manual cover)
-keypad

DOWNS
-connector
-heats up a lil bit
-music quality limited(crap earphones)

woh weekends

It's saturday. I used to spend weekends hanging out with my friends,but that was long ago.
A movie at Prasads,Biryani at prince,a delicious lassi and ice cream for dessert. Why aren't going out now? The last time I remember going to a movie was in the last semester. My friends seem to have grown up- into uncles.Two years ago we used to look for excuses to meet. "Abey kal second sat hai,movie chaltay hai,night out kartey hai". As if one movie was not enough we used to watch 3 rented CDs in a row. In manuguru we used to go to the nearby river to chill out.
All that has changed. "I guess everyone's trying to move on" a friend quotes.
Sure as hell they are.

One thing's for sure- everyone's got new friends.Of course everyone make friends in a long course such as engg -but not me. I never thought it necessary. Or maybe I am too much of an a@# to have friends.

change is the only constant and I found it the hard way. The worst part is there's one more year to go.

can't wait to see what's in store.

summertime and exams

what's CLR?
I was stumped.His first question and I didnt know the answer. I knew middleware technologies was going to be a problem.
I wrote the program and executed it,all in 15 minutes. The 'external' came an hour late.
He started with CLR,which of which I had no idea. the other questions were simple and all went well.

It was so hot today I was having difficulty keeping my eyes open. After the exam,we headed to the nearest mosque for friday prayers. It was quite hot already and to add to our woes there was no power at the mosque.
After namaz we stood under a tree waiting for an auto. Had a mango flavored icecream that helped cool down the body a lil bit.

The buses at the chevalla bus stand were as usual filled to capacity and we got a seat at moinabad.

As soon as i got down I gulped down two glasses of nimbu pani,came home,took a shower and went to sleep.

woke up just now. There's no rice left so have to do with a pack of top ramen. There's a bottle of maaza in the refrigerator so dinner's sorted.

scary...nothingmore

I was browsing random articles on wikipedia today when I came across "The raven" by Edgar Allan Poe.
I am no poetry fan and the only poems I remember(and like) are "stopping by the woods...","the brook" , "the road not taken" to name a few,which were of course part of our syllabus.
The sheer strength of the poem coupled with it's supernatural theme blew me away. I wonder why I hadn't heard of it before.
This is the poem that introduced to the world a genius that was edgar allan poe.
his mystical and scary stories scare me even today. I read them as a kid and "the fall of the house of usher" and "the black cat" are still fresh in my mind.
Not that I understood them fully, The style of narration was not very easy to comprehend but they were scary nevertheless.

Here's an excerpt from the poem:

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.
.
.
. "

TranceUpdate 2

In these times of exams and depression, trance comes as a solid stressbuster.

Listen to Reach Me by Lexicon 4 remixed by Paul Van Dyk.

Note: Trance is best enjoyed on a pair of good quality earphones, preferably in-ear buds or cans.
Listening to trance on cheap vakai,congli whatever earphones is like watching a movie thru frosted glass.

corba what?

"are you waiting for a miracle?
as the icecaps melt away..."

Of course I am. Lab exam on Friday and I donno for s@#$ what CORBA is. Wasted the whole day sleeping, I am hungry now. Last time I had rice was yesterday evening.
No contact with friends.Everyone's busy,so much so they're not answering their phones. Yesterday's trip to Miyapur has taken it's toll-as expected.
Headache is at an all-time high. That i can live with. The sad part is that no one has a fu@#$g clue what it feels like.
The election heat is gaining momentum and political clashes and scuffles seem imminent. Need to be more careful now.
On the brighter side, exams end on may 12. I'll spend the holidays in Manuguru. No place like it, I tell you.

myPix

Mera Mast Transport System

I went to Sri Chaitanya College,Miyapur today to meet my sister Saba. She's doing her second year of inter,EAMCET stream.

My bro and I went on MMTS upto hafizpet,from lakdikapul. This was my first trip on it and the ride was wonderful. I saw Hyderabad Suburbs today in a completely different perpective.Who said MMTS is a failed venture. There was decent crowd and some compartments were even filled to capacity.

I was very apprehensive about going because my last trip(in car) was not very comfortable. But this trip proved to be rather enjoyable.
Saba and her friends are doing good. Some problems with the faculty but that's normal.

I'll upload the pics in my next post.

TranceUpdate1

My current favorites

Richard Durand Feat. Cassandra Fox - Touch Me In The Morning (Mash Up)

Dj Shah- Lost (voted no.1 in ASOT 383,Best of 2008)

Simon Patterson- A Different Feeling(Nirvana i say!)

TranceUpdate

I love trance music. The bug bit me a coupla years ago and I've been mad about it ever since.
My favorite compilation is the "state of trance" series by Armin Van Buuren. AVB is currently the World's No 1 DJ, and I tell ya his compilations are mind blowing.

TranceUpdate is a listing of my favorite trance tracks from ASOT and others albums.

Follow the link "TranceUpdate" for more posts.

In pic: Armin Van Buuren

The Fall: Spectacular

It is not very often that you see a movie that mesmerizes. Not with fancy action sequeces and extravagant actors but by pure simplicity of direction and breathtalking locations
Yesterday I got to see "The Fall", a 2006 movie by Tarsem Singh and was blown away by the sheer visual strength of the movie. The locations are stunning ranging from a Los Angeles hospital to the palaces of udaipur.
The story is set in in the 1920s,a stuntman loses his legs in a bad stunt and is recuperating in the Hospital. When his Girlfriend runs away with the leading man from the movie, he decides to end his life.
Here he meets a little cute girl Alexandria, who is there with a broken arm. He tries to persuade her to get him a lethal dose of morphine by tellling her an "epic story". She gets captivated by it and imagines how it looks like. That is what we see on screen.

The pace of the story is a bit slow but this movie was not made for us action lovers anyway. All in all a beautiful movie with spectacular visuals.The girl Catinca Untaru(Romanian) steals the show with her innocent portrayal of alexrandia.

A movie like this comes along very rarely and shoudn't be missed.

Hangover 1

I was busy(sleeping) yesterday so no posts.Three days of examinations had exhausted me so much, i slept like a log for 11hrs straight
wPage : New and notable on the web

The web is such a vast place,there are hundreds of websites that remain undiscovered. we tend to stick with the popular ones and trust Google with just about anything: Jobs,gadgets,you name it.

Yesterday I came across this page by PC Mag listing the "100 best undicovered websites"

Some of the interesting entries are:

Oddee.com ------- Well, this one is not new. It's been on my favorites list for over a year now. Everyhing from strange diseases to the wierdest gadgets
are listed here with pictures. The presentation is neat and no annoying popups.



taggalaxy.de ------ An innovative image seach engine that lists search resluts in an interactive solar system. The images are then shown in thumbnail view
on each planet. very cute but heavy on resources so you need a fairly fast internet connection.


searchme.com ------ Another seach engine worth mentioning. It uses an Apple cover flow like interface which gives it an uber cool look.

Next is what?

Third year of Engineering is coming to an end. one more year to go and I am free. Wait a sec,free?
Of course, there's no Job waiting given my average scores and skillset. When students from the like of Anna University are biting the dust, we have a
chance in hell of getting a job.

what then? Higher Studies. As if graduation was not enough, heavy compettion is forcing us into even more of this study crap.
USA is the favorite destination for HS.Looks like every family's got one or two there. I heard from my cousin that in his college almost everybody was
Telugu! English was nowhere to be heard.

Now the United States is kicking the Indians' hindquarters as is evident from the fall in GRE applications. Which leaves us with little choice.
UK and Australia are expensive and the other countries not favorable.
I was never thinking of these anyway. Saudi Arabia is my destination.KFUPM to be precise.

Long shots,don't you think? let's leave it fate(never helped me much AAMOF)

2nd mid Day 3

Day 2 was so exhausting I fell asleep almost instantly. I even forgot to remove my socks. Woke up in the morning today just in time to catch my bus.
Scanned the textbook for a while, and then enjoyed the view outside. It was very cool after yesterday's rain and the countryside looked great.
The first exam went well.
Had little time to prepare for the second exam but STM is a relatively easy exam, so chill. Had a nice garam chai at the canteen.
The second exam went well too.
So, a 3-day hatrick. Never been to college three days in a row!
Next: UNIX Lab External on 13th

mHD

In pic: Yousuf,Vishal and myself

2nd mid day 1

Wrote my 2nd mid exams HCI and DMDW today. It is often said that a generous amount of luck is essential along with hardwork. well, in my case no matter how much effort I put in something always goes wrong. Today I forgot to write my name and roll no on the paper. As good as not writing the exam!
The thought struck me while writing the second exam,I Handed over the paper in 30minutes and ran straight to the Exam room(no luck there). Thus, i ruined my second exam too.

I don't like haggling for marks,attendance or anyhtn for that matter.I donno how some of my classmates get away with anything with no more than a smile from the teachers while I was late a couple of minutes in the lab one day and i got a sound scolding.

No place for decency or old-school values these days.

Back to the past

Yug badla badla hindustan....

Remember this catchy tune? The theme music of "YUG", a TV show aired on DD during the 1990s.
Back when I was a kid I was oblivious to the actual content of these shows but some things like that lovely Rasna Ad or "miley sur mera..." somehow got into my long term memory.

Thanks to the internet, I found most of those videos on ddnational.blogspot.com
Watching these videos makes me nostalgic.

I also found all the episodes of my favorite Disney show "Talespin" on youtube. How I enjoyed it as a Kid !
Also in my list are Duck Tales and Aladdin.

I am not done yet. My favorite songs as a kid "Mona re..." , "kya surat hai" by Bombay Vikings
and "Noorie" by Bally Sagoo. Check them out on youtube.

JNTU does it again

"EVEN IF GOVERNMENT DECLARES HOLIDAY ON ANY OF THE ABOVE DATES, THE EXAMINATIONS SHALL BE CONDUCTED AS USUAL"

thus stated the JNTU website under the Examination timetable. I did'nt believe it. Exams were scheduled to begin 21-April and finish by the second of may. Examinations during polls is a bad idea and i knew there were bound to be hiccups.

First they put up a notice postponing DMDW to 04 may. Now they've pushed the entire time table by about a week to 27 Apr.
Postponement of exams is something many students want, but here we're used to it.

Now It's already getting very hot here and writing examinations with sweat dripping on the paper and soggy palms losing grip on the pen is a nightmare for
any student(if he knows the answers that is).

I say the sooner the better bcoz no matter how much they postpone, itz not gonna make any bloody difference in our preparation(AIO zindabad!)


First Exam- 27 Apr

Second Exam- 29 Apr

Third- 01 May

Fourth- 04 May

Fifth- 06 May

Sixth- 12 May

AHtalk and other stories

"Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand "

I donno how they do it. I donno where they get their topics from. Cars,Phones,Islam, you name it.
Exams' due to start in 10 minutes and this guy falls into an NDTV style debate on such a moronic topic, it'd make a child laugh.
Add to it some hyderabadi expletives and in minutes you have others pouring in their "expert opinions".

F^%$, man i'm tryin to do some study here!

Nyway MWT exam went well. The sight of that maam was making me perspire. But guess wat, I answered all the viva questions!
But i know i won't be gettin good marks nyway.

"What is love" by Haddaway is an old tune but still sounds so fresh. Just saw the video on youtube. Still very popular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo
minimize the window and listen.

Our DMDW exam's posponed to 04 may from the scheduled 23 april. Gives enought time for UNIX. MWT's still a problem though.

Here's me all exhausted,waiting for my college bus to start.