Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

January 31, 2005

Is it wrong to compare?

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 6:53 AM

Had a discussion with Surabhi today about people comparing two things. She is totally against anyone comparing anything with anything. She gets mad when people compare her looks with her friends or when people compare things in India to things else where etc.

Is it really so bad to compare? We do it all the time, is IE better that Firefox? Is Linux better than Windows? Is food at this place better than the other place? So why do some people don’t like others comparing two people? I don’t mean that you should compare someone with another person and tell him/her that the other person is so much better and that he/she is useless. We can do a positive comparision also, where both the plus points and the minus points of each person is compared. This can be done without putting down anyone.

Comparing yourself against an ideal tells you how much more effort you need to put in in order to achieve the same result. How is that bad? I think that comparing two things allows us to recognize the good points in both of them and if done the right way it generates a healthy feeling of competition between the two but if done incorrectly it can really damage someone’s self-esteem. So if you want to compare someone with another person put yourself in their shoes and think how that comment would effect you if it was directed towards you. One the other hand if you are comparing two inanimate objects you can put down the one you don’t like as much as you want. 🙂

Well this is all for now. Goodnight.

– Suramya

January 30, 2005

MSNBot Sucks

Filed under: My Thoughts,Tech Related — Suramya @ 10:03 PM

Really pissed of at the stupid MSNBot and its stupid webcrawling allgorithim right now. In the past one month it has hit my site 34,892 times and has transfered 1.2 GB of data from my site. I have no idea what on my site it thinks has changed and needs to be reindexed, it did the same thing last month where the traffic from all the other Bots combined was less than the traffic from it.

The funny part is that in the past one month the only thing that changed on my site was the Blog, addition of one new article and an update to my resume. I have no idea how this could translate to 1.2 GB of data. Below is a snapsot showing the amount of data transfered by each web crawler.

NEway’s I have emailed Microsoft about it, lets see if I actually get a response to my mail.

– Suramya

Now you can get arrested for taking pics in your college

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 9:32 PM

Was talking to Vinit today and his told me about this student in NJIT who was taking pics of the NJIT campus for a photography class he was taking. He was supposed to take 2 rolls worth of pics and submit them, and he decided to take pics of the NJIT campus but was told to stop by the NJIT Campus security as it was a security risk and was not allowed without prior permission.

How stupid can you get? This is a student taking pics so that he can pass a class not some terrorist. And before you start yelling at me to tell me its impossible to know. Think. If you were a terrorist would you have walk around the campus openly with a camera taking pics? Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to visit the official NJIT website, click on the link for a virtual campus tour and use that to plan for an attack? You can even get printed maps of the campus from the student center. For that matter you can goto the photogallery section of my site and under the heading NJIT Campus Views and get photos of almost every building on campus. Does this mean that I am helping terrorists?

I have seen the same thing on bridges etc in NY and NY. Big signs that say “Photography strictly prohibited” All they do is prevent tourists from taking pics to preserve memories. People who are planning an attack are not going to walk around with a big camera to plan an attack, they could just as well use a 5 year old photo to plan where they want to plant a bomb. Its not like the support pillars of the bridge go waltzing around every few days. The ban on photography makes some sense in millitary area’s, Airports etc, where the structure and placement of guards etc changes constantly. On a bridge/college it makes no sense at all.

Well this is all for now. More later.

– Suramya

January 29, 2005

web surveillance cams exposed by google

Filed under: News/Articles — Suramya @ 9:24 AM

Since google started it has given people tremendous power to search for data. This is a good thing but sometimes it returns data which the author didn’t intend to share like passwords, confedencial data etc.

A while ago I had read about people using google to search the web for scanners that were publically accessable and read the data being scanned. This is even better, you can now search on google for some specific strings and find webcams that havn’t been secured and look at its surveillance videos live. Using it I found cam’s at construction sites, computer labs, traffic lights etc. These people have no idea that their vidoes are available for free on the web.

Unless someone notifies the person running the cam its possible that he/she would never know that he/she is providing entertanment to some wierdo sitting in a dark computer room staring at people who actually have a life unlike them.

Here’s the story on Theregister.co.uk

Using the searches I used I didn’t find any sites that here showing really private views like someone’s bedroom though I did see one person’s living room. So I am debating whether to post links to the google searches I used. Feel free to post your comments and let me know if I should or not. The info is already out there, should I make it easier to find or not?

Well this is all for now. More later.

– Suramya

Quickest route the MS way

Filed under: Funny News — Suramya @ 12:29 AM

Microsoft does it again. Now to goto a place in Norway from a place in Norway you have to cross 4 countries and this is supposed to be the ‘quickest route….

Here’s the URL: MSN Maps

Way to go MicroSoft…

– Suramya

January 27, 2005

Arrived safely in the US

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 10:09 AM

Arrived safely in the US. Had an interesting flight back.
Details when I am not so jetlagged.

– Suramya

January 25, 2005

Trip details Part 3

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 6:26 AM

As promised, here are the remaining details of my trip. In a very condensed format.

In my last post I told you about my trip to Bangalore where I met Gaurang and Kartik but I forgot to tell you about the trip I made with my family to my Paternal grandparent’s place a couple of days before that. Me, mom, papa and Surabhi all drove to their place for a day and had a great time there. Here’s a family pic taken at that time.

Me, mom and Surabhi also visited my youngest mausi where I also met my cousin sister Rakhi and her daughter along with my cousins Rishab and Ritika. We stayed there for lunch and had a great time. Below is a pic taken there:


Surabhi, Mom, Ritika, Rakhi Didi, Sheetal Mausi, Rishabh

After I got back from my Banglore trip me and mom went to visit my maternal grandparents and my cousin. Mom drove the whole way (4 hours) since we were in a hurry (She had to attend some political meeting) and according to her she could drive better on those roads (I agree) so I slept the whole way. Once we got there mom and babaji (Thats what I call my grandfather) went to the meeting and I stayed at home with Mamiji (Mom’s brother’s wife), Ashok Bhaiya (My cousin), Sarika Bhabhi (His wife) and Shaurya (My nephew). I had a lot of fun with them. Shaurya took me to the fields and there we had guava picked fresh from the trees (I tried a couple of times but got unripe ones each time, guess I am not much of a farmer).

Ashok bhaiya took me to the market and to meet his friends. It was a lot of fun, then we came back and had awesome home made food. Below is a pic of me and shaurya taken when he was having his dinner.


Me and Shaurya

Once we all had dinner Ashok bhaiya and me went to the field and built a campfire and talked for a couple of hours. Then once we started running out of stuff to burn we came back and went to sleep. The next day we had to wakeup early and me and mom left for Delhi. One the way back we stopped for a couple of hours at my 2nd eldest Mama’s place for a couple of hours. We had lunch over there and mamiji made halwa (If you don’t know what this is you have been seriously deprived) for me. Here’s a pic taken over there


Chavi, Me, Badal, Rajkumar Mama, and Shipra

Then after luch we drove back and arrived in Delhi in the evening.

This is a long entry, and I am tired so I will finish it later

January 16, 2005

New article posted

Filed under: Website Updates — Suramya @ 11:27 AM

After a long time I have posted a new article on Computer Usability Vs Security. In this article I try to figure out if Computer Security and Computer Usability are two opposite directions in computer systems. Check it out and let me know what you think about it.

– Suramya

January 14, 2005

Its fun visiting friends

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 2:21 PM

Here’s another update from India. Since I last posted I have been pretty busy with visiting friends and relatives. First I flew to Bangalore on the 7th Jan on an Air Deccan flight. I almost missed the flight in spite of being in the Airport an hour before the check in time. I was watching the status board for information about my flight and it kept saying that my flight was on time but didn’t say if the flight had started boarding or not so I happily kept listening to music and was reading a very interesting book. Then about 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time I walked up to the Air Deccan counter and asked them about my flight which is when I found out that the flight was going to depart in 10 mins and they were about to close the boarding gates so I rushed through the security check and boarded the plane.

I made it to Bangalore on time and had a lot of fun, I got to meet my friend Gaurang who is in the merchant navy after 3 years. We stayed up pretty late and talked a lot. The first night we were up till 3 am just talking. We were supposed to go check out the nightlife in Bangalore but we got so involved in talking that we lost track of time. The next day Gaurang’s mom woke us at 8:30 am and took us out for breakfast. We ate Dosa’s at this restaurant (can’t remember the name) which Aunty didn’t like as they were pretty oily but both me and Gaurang liked them a lot. Then we drove around Bangalore for a while doing chores after which we dropped Aunty at home and left to have lunch at this place called RR. We (Me, Gaurang and Viraj) left home at 2:00 pm and got caught in a very bad traffic jam for a couple of hours. We finally made it to the restaurant at 4:45 pm and had our lunch at 5:00 pm. Then we drove back to Gaurang’s place to pick up aunty and drive to Kartik’s place for dinner. Since we had such a late lunch neither Gaurang or me ate much inspite of a great selection (Sorry Aunty)

Edit:(The remaining entry)

Then we spent the night talking. Once the party was over all of us went back to Gaurang’s place. Kartik drove his car and I rode with him while Aunty and Gaurang were in the other car. The only comment I have about the ride back is that Kartik plays too many car racing games… 🙂

bangalore.jpg
Gaurang, Me and Kartik at Gaurang’s place

Once we were back we watch Animatrix ’cause gaurang hadn’t seen it yet, then we talked for a while and then Kartik went back home while me and Gaurang went to sleep (I think it was about 4:30 am at that time). Got up in the morning and helped Gaurang and Aunty pack. By this time Gaurang’s dad was in town so I got to meet him too. Then we dropped Gaurang at the Airport for his flight to Bombay and uncle & Aunty dropped me at Kaban park near Vinit’s place.

Since I knew no one was going to be home at his place till 2:30 pm I spent the next couple of hours walking around MG Road and Brigade road. Then I went to his place and met Aunty and his cousin Anshu. After a great meal of Pav-Bhaji we all went to the temple where it was pretty crowded due to it being a Sunday. Then on the way back we stopped over at Madhur’s place and met his mom. He wasn’t there ’cause he had gone to drop someone off on his bike and had an accident on the way back (He wasn’t hurt but that should teach him to pay more attention to the road than the girls on the road.) Then we left for home and stopped for some very tasty Golgappa’s.

At home I met Vinit’s dad. By this time a couple of Anshu’s friends had come over. So Aunty took all of us out for dinner and we went to this road where both sides will filled with stalls and I had awesome Uttapam’s and Idli over there followed by a couple of slices of watermelon.

Once we got back home, we watched a little bit of TV then after Aunty went to bed Anshu and me stayed up talking. Since my flight was at 5:30 am and I had to be at the airport latest by 4:30 am, I decided not to sleep and spent the night reading.

The flight back was uneventfull and I made it back in one piece.

Other than memories I brought back one other thing from Bangalore: A very bad cold, which I caught from Kartik and then passed on to my parents. (Kartik: Thanks a Lot… )

Over all a very fun trip. Wish I could do it more often.&

– Suramya

January 6, 2005

Update from India

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 4:46 PM

Hi Everyone,

Here’s an update from me after a long time. First let me wish you a very happy new year and hope that all you wishes and dreams come true in the following year and all the years to come.

As some of you might already know I am currently in India enjoying a long delayed vacation. 🙂 I left NY on the 26th Dec from JFK International airport where Vinit had dropped me off for my flight on Airo-Flaut to Delhi via Moscow. After waiting in line for about 1 1/2 hour they finally started the checkin procedure which went surprisingly fast. After I checked in I found out that my flight which was supposed to depart at 7:30 pm had been delayed for some reason. I finally departed from New York at 10:00 pm. The flight was ok, I got to watch Cinderella with was a decent timepass movie. I spent the flight reading a very interesting novel. In Moscow the transit procedings took a total of about 5 mins after which I was free to roam the airport for 1 1/2 hours while waiting for my flight to begin boarding. The second flight was also pretty decent, I actually arrived in Delhi on time at 12:00 am.

Unfortunately my parents have decided that I need to get up early and goto bed early so I have been getting up at 8:00 am and going to bed around 11:00 pm :-(. I spent the next few days relaxing at home and visitng a couple of relatives. We spent the new years at home ’cause it was the first time after 5 years that all four of us were together in one place at the same time.

I am going to Banglore tomorrow for 2 days to meet Gaurang. It has been about 3 years since we have met. I am also planning meeting with a couple of my classmates over the next few days. Lets see how that works out.

Well this is all for now. I know I skipped a lot of the stuff I have been doing for the past few days but you will just have to bear with me. Dial-up connection sucks. I am waiting for the DSL connection to be activated, lets hope that it is activated before I leave. I Will post more later.

– Suramya

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