Book Search: Delhi Style
Thanks to Google Blogoscoped for the link.
– Suramya
May 11, 2006
May 10, 2006
Delhi’s weather forecast for the next 5 days
And people ask me why I complain about the heat…
In Deg Celcius
In Fahrenheit
– Suramya
Comments Off on Delhi’s weather forecast for the next 5 days
MS Live Messenger paradox
This is just hillarious. Basically the new MS Live Beta installer wants you to close the MSN installer so that the MSN installer can continue installing(See the pic below). I havn’t tried installing it on my system because I don’t like MSN and don’t want it to mess with my system.
MSN Paradox…
Source: Reg reader traumatised by MS Live Messenger paradox
Thanks for the laugh guys.
– Suramya
May 8, 2006
My weekend
Can’t think of a better headline than this. I know you are supposed to make the title interesting and attention grabbing but thats something I have always sucked at. I find it easier to write the body and the summary and let the title fend for itself…
NEways thats not what this post is about (Though I might write about that in the near future) This weekend I metup with Aditya who was my classmate in 9th and 10th at Boys High School, Allahabad. He is the one who actually got me interested in computers so he’s to blame for all the messes/catastrophies I have caused using computers 🙂
We were meeting each other after a loong time (The last time was sometime in 2001 or so) so we had a lot to catchup on. It was fun. We had coffee in Cafe Coffee Day and then walked around Sec 18 in Noida. Then we had dinner at this place who’s tag line was “Come taste some bad food” which was really interesting and great marketing as the only reason the both us decided to eat here was to try out a place that asks you to try some bad food. Don’t remember the name of the place (Aditya do you remember what the place was called?) but the food was actually good and cheap. Then we talked a bit more over a long dinner (It was too hot outside so neither of us wanted to go back out). Once we were done with dinner we went for a drive around noida which was fun.
Came back and read Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard again. The book is 1000 times better than the movie based of it. Then I crashed. Woke up late on Sunday, was initially planning to go meet some more friends but the temprature outside convinced me otherwise. So I spent the day reading and watching old Stargate episodes.
Thought about writing another article but it was Sunday and didnt’ feel like using my brain…. 😉
Well this is all about my weekend… Will post more later.
Cya,
Suramya
May 5, 2006
Face of Delhi MBBS Students Protest
Recently the MBBS Students in Delhi mounted a protest at India Gate against the Indian govt’s intention of increasing the reservations in the premier government educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institute of Managements and other institutions of higher learning to 49.5%.
These students were tear-gassed and sprayed with water cannons when they blocked traffic on Janpath, near Hotel Le Meridian crossing. Mild lathicharge was also resorted to in order to break the ‘rasta roko’, which lasted for more than one-and-a-half hours. Below is an awesome pic that someone took that can be termed as ‘Face of the Protest’. Whoever took the photo should be given an award.
More pics and writeup’s are available at Face of Delhi MBBS Students Protest
Increasing the quota is a sucidal move, do you really want to have a person who barely managed to pass his highschool exams to become a doctor because he is from a ‘backward’ class and operate on you. I certainly don’t, It would suck to find out half way into the operation that the ‘doctor’ had no clue what to do. Same thing for an engineer, do you want someone with no clue about structural integrity designing and building skyscapers? You do??? Then you must have a death wish, I certainly don’t.
If the gov’t wants to improve the lot of the backward classes it should make primary, secondary and highschool education free. Open more schools, give deserving students more scholarships. Teach the students to learn, make them work for it. Dont let them coast through school and then become a doctor without doing the hardwork during which they actually learn stuff.
So I think that this is not really a smart idea and it would be better to give financial aid to deserving students. Also instead of complaining about it I think we should do something about it. I take inspiration from people like Tarini (who sent me this) who also actually do stuff about the social situation instead of just complaining about it. So while I have been donating to charity organizations (Aryasamaj, Basera) that helps educate kids with potential, I haven’t been able to give time to actual volunteer work. However that is something which is going to change soon, (prob next year) as I will actually start volunteering in various organizations (not just national but international). Lets see how that works out.
What are your thoughts on reservation? Do you think its a good idea, or a really bad one that will come back and bite us in the backside in a couple of years? Let me know.
Thanks,
Suramya
May 3, 2006
Demotivators strike again…
Despair.com’s infamous Demotivators turn motivational posters on their heads, reminding you just how little you matter to the executive-class overlords.
Check them out… I personally like most of them, but this one stands out as a classic:
Destiny
Source:View All Demotivators®
Thanks to Techrepublic for the link.
– Suramya
May 2, 2006
My Article to be published in Linux Journal’s June edition
My article on ‘Converting Video Formats with FFmpeg’ is to be published in Linux Journal’s June edition. 🙂
Source: Linux Journal Contents #146, June 2006
– Suramya
May 1, 2006
Spent the weekend with relatives
This weekend was awesome fun, I had visited my grandparents place and really enjoyed myself. Me and mom left for Basera at about 6:30 am after I was done with work and had breakfast and we both freshened up. It took us a little more than four hours to get there due to traffic and both of us spent the time talking. Halfway through we stopped for Shikanji (Lemonade) at my favorite place (I stop there every single time we pass through) and got some new cassettes because the only ones we had in the car were ‘Best of Kishore Kumar’ (Which I really like, but you can only listen to it so many times) and ‘Atal Ji ki Kavitae’ (Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s poems). Then I went to sleep because I wanted to be awake when we got there.
In the meantime my cousin and nephew were calling us every 15-20 mins asking us where we were and how long it would take us to get there. Finally we got there and I got to meet everyone. My mausi (Mom’s sister) and my cousin Axu were also there so I got to meet them after about 7 years. It was awesome. I had last seen her when she was in 3rd grade and now she just gave her 10th exams. My Nephew’s Shaurya and Laksh were also there so I spent a lot of time playing with them. Laksh has just started to sit unaided but can’t sit for a long time so we had to watch him carefully so that he wouldn’t fall.
Then we drove back on Monday morning with Mausi and Axu. The drive back was fun. We stopped at Rajkumar mama’s (Mom’s brother) place and had pakora’s and Lassi. It was awesome. When we got back me and Axu talked for a while and then I went to sleep ’cause I had to work in the evening and I had to be awake for it.
Well this was a condensed version of my weekend. Will write more later.
Cya,
Suramya
April 27, 2006
Got AirTel broadband today
Today AirTel came and activated my DSL connection and phone line. It was a very pleasant experience as the guys who came for the installation very friendly and helpfull. It was one of the best customer care I have gotten so far.
My table is on the other side of the room from the phone jack so I was dreading having to run either the phone cable or an ethernet cable across the room. But to my great surprise the Airtel tech who had come to setup the phone connection did the cabling for me. (Its standard procedure apparently) and he did a pretty good/neat job of it too. To top it all off he even setup my BSNL line near the table so I don’t have to extend cables anymore. And both the guys were very professional and courteous.
Then later in the evening the DSL installation guy came and in ~35 mins I was up and running. He configured the modem for me and intially set it up so that I would have an icon on my desktop that I would have to click to connect to the net. When I asked him to set it up so that the modem itself authenticated the connection so that I don’t have to he did that too without complaining and he was actually knowledgeable about the stuff. I wasn’t there when BSNL installed my old DSL connection but according to my dad they were very lazy, didn’t really explain anything and setup the connection in a really haphazzad way. This guy knew what he was doing and he actually checked to see if I have an updated antivirus program before connecting me to the web.
I think the bigest advantage is that people at Airtel want you to remain as its customer while the people at BSNL don’t really care. So what if you are without net access for a week, it doesn’t really affect them so they don’t care. I am 99% sure that if my airtel connection dies they will have someone out here within 24 hours to look at it if it can’t be solved over the phone. Thats why I prefer private companies than govt ones in India. For private companies I am the customer and “The customer is always right”. They will go out of their way to help you but sadly thats not so for the govt companies.
The best part of this connection is that it doesn’t have any upload/download limits on it. Which is good. For some wierd reason BSNL doesn’t have any plans with unlimited upload/download which I find really wierd. So now I can stay online as long as I like/use the Vonage phone for as long as I like without having to worry about running over my quota. 🙂 🙂
Now I have two DSL lines at home which is very cool. 🙂 Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
Cya,
Suramya