10.23.08
Broken Record
Today the renewed SEXIE Blog reached 1000 unique visits.
To celebrate 1000 posts, I’ll upload a kick-ass blog post on the Industrial Visit loaded with pictures, videos and insights on everything.
Don’t miss this one. I’ll upload it this weekend.
Meanwhile, if you wanna contribute to this post, contact me personally.
10.20.08
wait up.
I’m writing this as I’m charging my phone in the train that’s heading back home, just to mention that we’ve had such a kickass time in bangalore and mysore that it’s way too difficult to post every experience in 1 blog.
So wait for a few days, and I’ll upload every pic and experience Asap.
Cheers.
10.13.08
Bengaluru Strain – The Finale
Now that I have the complete itinerary of the Industrial Visit (mentioned as IV from now on) to Bangalore and Mysore, I’m in a much better position to analyze and comment on the issues that we shall be facing soon…real soon. If you’re coming for the IV, read on as you’ll have a comprehensive knowledge of the things to expect during the IV.
Contrary to popular belief, this IV will require a lot of patience and stamina from each and every one of us to be successful. When I first looked at the itinerary, it seemed a lot like any typical hiking itinerary where most of the time passes off in travelling. Unfortunately, it’s true. Our schedule is so crammed up that I decided to postpone writing my assignments to after the IV (Yeah, no kidding)
Let me cut straight to the chase and get on with the details:
Day 1: Wednesday, 15th October 2008
Let’s not forget that we have two midterm exams on this day. Some of us even have to stay back for the Java Project and/or PCT Presentations. Now, it gets hectic right from Day1 as we have to write an exam, leave college, go home, and leave for Dadar TT, all on the same day.
The Chalukya Express (CLICK HERE TO CHECK FOR TRAIN DELAY) will leave at 9.30pm and hence we’ll have to reach there by 8.30pm and report to either Sandesh, Inderveer or Vineet.
Once all the formalities are done (Deed of undertaking, Attendance, final instructions and speech, etc.) we’ll have to occupy the same seats as we’ve been given and then relocate wherever we want after about an hour or so.
Dinner is to be managed ourselves and the rest of the day night will be spent in chatting/screwing around and finally, getting a good sleep for the next day.
Day 2: Thursday, 16th October 2008
*Yawn* You’ll finally get something that you’ve always dreamed of….breakfast in bed 
. Breakfast and Lunch will be served at 9am and 12pm respectively but I’m not sure about the menu. We should reach Yashwantpur by around 8.45pm after which we will be transferred to Hotel T A P Gold Crest by bus. Dinner follows.
Remember that this is a prominent point in the IV and you should make the most of it. This hotel has a free Wi-Fi Internet connection and a pool table so make the most of it while you can. Charge your phone and enjoy the deep sleep (You’ll know why I said that very soon) as you progress to Day3.
Day 3: Friday, 17th October 2008
Hey!!! Get the ^@#* up!!!
Finish your routine and get ready by 7am ’cuz that’s when the Buffet Breakfast will be served. (Oxymoron???) And hey, Eat the ^%@& up!!! Our bus leaves at 7.30am.
At this point, the entire group will be split.
A few EXTC students will leave for Hosur and I applaud them for this journey as it will only add to their fatigue.
The rest of EXTC, Computers and IT will remain in Bangalore and will visit a few companies there.
If everything goes as per plan we should be done by about 4pm, but HEY!, there’s no time to relax. Pack your bags immediately and get back in the Bus, we’re going to Mysore.
After 4-5 hours of a tiring journey (this is not considering the quality of the roads…let’s just hope they’re okay) we reach Mysore and stay at S K Continental.
Load up on the food (but be careful, if the reviews are to be believed, the food sucks here) and have a nice sleep (once again, if you read the reviews, it says the rooms are dirty)
S K Continental is a budget hotel that is nowhere in comparison to T A P Gold Crest and what’s ironic is that we’re spending more time in Mysore.
Day 4: Saturday, 18th October 2008
This day will be spent entirely in Mysore with Industrial Visits and Sightseeing taking up most of the time.
I started looking around for Mysore in Google Maps, Nokia Maps and a few more Map Providers and I was shocked to see that Mysore is missing from Nokia Maps and has incorrect information in Google Maps.
Google Maps screws up the entire city Map. It messes up all the roads and even claims to show a building as Mysore Airport LOL!
So unlike Bangalore where I really had a nice virtual look around the place, I’m totally clueless about Mysore. Although from the satellite image I could see that the famous Mysore Palace is just walking distance from Mysore Palace (approx 500m as the crow flies and approx. 700m by road) so this should be an interesting day.
Dinner follows and you’re wished the very best for putting up with the dirty rooms for the rest of the night. (Hey, I’m only judging by the reviews)
Day 5: Sunday, 19th October 2008
Another hectic day which all of us have to be prepared for.
We travel back to Bangalore by bus, finish up on the local sightseeing and reach Bangalore City Junction by 7pm. Our train Udyan Express leaves at 8pm. (CLICK HERE TO CHECK FOR TRAIN DELAY….ENTER 6530 AS TRAIN CODE)
The same routine follows as we await the final day.
Day 6: Monday, 20th October 2008
You’ll notice that this train takes a totally different path from the Chalukya Express. This one goes down to Tamil Nadu and then proceeds towards Maharashtra.
We wait…we wait…and wait till it’s 8pm and we’ll reach Mumbai CST.
And once we’re back, the usual formalities will take place and we’ll get back to your worthless, mundane lives once again :’(
So, make the most of the IV, take loads of pictures and videos, screw around, go easy on the booze and use protection if you must
I’ll try and blog on the move from my cell phone, but I’m not too optimistic about it. Bangalore might be the IT Capital of India, but I’ve been there before and let’s face it….it sucks. There’s limited connectivity out there. Mumbai kicks way more ass than Bengaluru does.
Keep visiting for my next few posts on the Industrial Visit loaded with pictures and videos. Do share your pictures with me if you want me to show ’em here.
And don’t forget to keep checking THIS LINK. I’ll be tracking all our travelling paths using that service (as long as my cell phone Battery doesn’t run out)
Cya guys, Don’t forget to add Comments and Have an awsm time!
10.11.08
Paintball FrenXIE at TCET
Amidst all the projects, presentations and submissions some students from Thakur College had turned up at XIE sometime around last week and asked us if we were interested in any of their events. They had the usuals which didn’t catch our fancy, Robotics events, LAN Gaming, Tech Papers, etc.
These events weren’t boring, but when you’re in T.E. out here in Mumbai, it’s almost obvious that you’ve done it all in the past two years and hence there was nothing that caught our attention. Suddenly, one of the Thakur reps told us that they’re having a Paintball Competition this time.
Paintball? Really? Is that possible? I’ve just seen it on T.V. and the only places where I’ve heard about paintball contests here (HR College and some weird-ass gym) weren’t exactly up to my expectations. Still, it seemed like an interesting experience and it was something all of us hadn’t done in a while so we decided to give it a shot.
Unfortunately the catch was that every member was supposed to pay 100/- to participate and not everybody had that sort of cash at that moment. Luckily for us, Robin, the NFS LAN Gaming Winner at a recently held College Festival had his 2000 Cash prize right in his pocket, and he decided to sponsor us all.
We signed up for three teams, each having 5 members and were issued cards for registration on the 10th of October.
Finally the day arrives. Everybody seemed to have submitted their PDC Journal, however I needed those intro pages which I didn’t have so although I had written everything, I wasn’t in a position to submit it. But thanks to Ms. Justine (I spelt it wrong, didn’t I?) I was allowed to submit it on Monday.
So, off we go to Thakur in a very crowded local train where I was physically molested (yes, my clothes were on) by unknown people who kept shouting…"Aur Dhakka Maaro" (Keep Pushing!!!)
After a very disturbing experience in the train (just for me), we reached Kandivali. Chirag knew the place head-to-toe so we followed him to a rickshaw stand where we hired one in groups of three and headed to Thakur.
It was scorching hot, and my head was sweating like an overflowing bowl of water, so we didn’t waste any time and headed straight for the small ground which for the time being was set up as the Paintball Arena.
I was pretty perplexed at the layout of the field as it looked pretty minimalistic at best and it seemed to model a basic speedball arena.
But I wasn’t complaining, it still looked exciting and we formed our groups and team strategy at that time. (Everything was done beforehand, but some guys backed out at the last minute so we had to adapt our strategies)
Luckily we were able to catch a few games of the other teams playing and we picked up quite a lot about the sport although I’d already done my reading from here prior to arriving at Thakur.
Since the other teams often missed their targets, the paintballs ended up outside the field. To those of the curious kind, these are the what the paintballs used by Thakur looked like: (I’ve seen smaller and larger varities at other places)
The organizers took a lunch break and I guess we needed a little time to explore the place so it was well received by all of us. I checked out the Junior College, ate Chinese Bhel, saw some really lame events and drank lots of aerated drinks and Frooti ’cuz frankly I didn’t wanna eat anything with flies hovering around it. (Sorry guys, Your canteen sucks)
Finally it was our turn. I signed a form confirming that I wouldn’t sue the college if anyone died and we were given our equipment, which was mainly a mask, a sweaty jumpsuit and a gun (Imagine a Bullpup from Counter-strike attached with a Storage Tank for paintballs and a Pump for the CO2 Compressor)
The game starts. Nobody knows what’s happening so we just shoot every target visible from our bunker to ensure nobody from their side moves. Unfortunately for us, they did the same. Linson tried going ahead after three of us pumped an opponent with a headshot and another on the chest, but returned after realizing that it wasn’t possible to continue.
The game ended with the scores 3-1 favouring us. I had told Bhavik to capture the entire round as a video (at 640×480 @30fps) on my phone, but he couldn’t figure out the controls so nothing came out of it.
Luckily when it was their turn, I recorded the entire round (for your viewing pleasure) on my phone. It’s a 3 minute length video having a file size of 57.2 MB!!! I can’t upload that much online! I reduced the quality till I got the file size till 5MB and uploaded it on Youtube.
Before you watch the video, here are some things you should not miss:
- Rohit Shetty running straight towards the opponents after being advised by Robin and Linson, getting shot in return and removes his helmet, immediately invoking a quick middle finger from my side. (No offence man but I was really in the paintball mood at the time)
- Chirag reloads his gun with used ammo that lay near him. How lame could he get? Get ready to hear some sweet profanities from a few of us when that happens.
Click Play and Enjoy the Video. (Hope you have a decent internet connection)
Their entertaining game ended in a 3-3 draw. The winners couldn’t be declared immediately as only the top 4 scorers of the day would qualify for the next round, so we’ll wait and see.
Here are some of the picture of the 2 teams (actually 3…I could manage to capture only 2) prior to the paintball round.
Team 1:
Anyway, irrespective of what happens to our results, we had an awesome time together and what made it better was that we were able to take out our assignment-deadline frustrations on our opponents.
I’ve got one thing clear in my mind, the next time there’s a paintball match I’m very much going to be there and I’ll be expecting you guys to show up too!!!
If you need the 57.2 MB version of the video or the original 1MB pictures, feel free to contact me and please post your thoughts as comments on this post.
10.09.08
How we did a PPT presentation
I have absolutely no idea how I managed to save enough time to type this blogpost. The reason being the dreaded ’submission weeks’ are here which sets the whole ‘day n night assignment completion saga’ in motion
(All right, I think I’ll crib about that later. Instead, I’ll get to the point for now.)
So anyway, to add to the massive workload of us engineering ‘mules’, we are supposed to give ppt presentations on any topic of our choice for the PCT subject. Easier said than done.
Roughly half the class has already given their presentations and our group finished it last tuesday.
So here’s how it was done:
About 3 days before the allocated day (some of us who have never been on stage before called it doomsday), our group gets busy preparing for the inevitable. Each person is allocated a section of the ppt, and they were supposed to prepare their parts at home…which they dont, of course. And a day before doomsday, my group members seem to have a lot of difficulty remembering which part of the presentation they are supposed to explain…which gets me real pissed (never mind that I hadnt prepared myself).
So being the leader, it seemed sensible to lock up all 10 guys in a room and tutor them on everything from ‘how to act as if u kno a lot about the topic’ to ‘how to bluff if you forget your lines’.
And thus we hoped to be prepared for ‘doomsday’. Our topic was RAW which stands for ‘Research and Analysis Wing’ of India.(It’s an intelligence agency)
Well, the presentation started off smoothly with me but things started faltering midway through. One guy was ’smart’ enough to bypass the points he had forgotten by describing ‘counter intelligence’ as intelligence that is ‘countered’!!!
Fortunately, I’m proud to say that most of my group spoke decently well.We got pretty good reviews later from friends and even Mrs.Meera herself.
Phew *sigh of relief*
I’m grateful to my boys for all the hardwork they put in (yes, even the guy who redefined ‘counter intelligence’)
I think I got an assignment to complete now…
10.07.08
The Bengaluru sTRAIN
Hey Guys,
There’s a bookload of information that I can write here about how the IV’s planning is being done and although I’d love to write about it, I’ll save it for the day we return from the trip. That post would include everything…What went into the planning…the pwned moments, the screw-ups, the oh-yeah! moments and everything from the train journey to the actual visit and back.
But before I write that epic post, I’ll be posting major updates about the Industrial Visit, starting with the Train Schedule.
This is our Train Schedule (Chalukya Express) on the 15th of October:
(Don’t worry about the date in the pictures…the Table is
And while coming back, it’s Chalukya Express on the 19th of October:
You’ll be surprised as to how much information we can gather just by looking at these two tables.
I’ll let you guys have your share of fact-finding fun by just revealing one interesting point.
Normally, if you’ve travelled long distances by the Indian Railways, you’ll notice that the train stops for about 15-20 minutes on certain stations. In this case, you’ll see that Hubli (to) and Solapur Junction (fro) are the only stations where the train stops for 15 minutes. Now I have no idea about you guys, but I’m gonna have a tough time spending 24 hours in a train without being able to get out of the coach for even 15 minutes every once in a while.
Guess I’ll make to arrange for alternatives.
Do add in your comments, I’d love to know your thoughts about the Industrial Visit.
As usual, I’ll keep you guys posted.
10.02.08
Comp Lab InWASTEments!
Let me proudly present to you, the irony of this situation right before I explain the current state of affairs in the XIE Computer Lab.
XIE has bought 2 new 24-port switches to complement the already existing array of 24-port switches used for our network. This is good news because it implies that XIE are planning on expanding the XIE network. The bad news is that you won’t get to enjoy any of it.
As you may or may not know, students are not allowed to access the internet in college ( Interestingly the college prospectus states quite the contrary ). What sense does it make to prevent a computer engineering student from accessing the Internet? The Future is Web 2.0 and here we aren’t even allowed to access the internet.
To make things worse, the computer technicians have disabled and even uninstalled USB drivers on most computers thus preventing anybody from copying his or her own programs onto their pen-drives.
Now the interesting thing to note is that all the students need to transfer their programs (somehow) to get it printed on one of the college printers. But if the USB Drives are disabled, emailing yourself is the only option (the internet is kept enabled at times). About a week back I was uploading my own Assembly Language programs and emailing them to myself so that I could transfer them later. The second I opened GMail, one sir started questioning me on why I needed to use the Internet. Apparently, saving backups of my own programs wasn’t a reason good enough for him and I had to surrender my ID card. A few days later I got my ID back and I had to apologize for copying my own programs.
To make things even more confusing, XIE is planning on installing a 2Mbps leased line from MTNL very soon which would replace the hopeless 256-512Kbps connection that we’re currently using. WTF for? What’s the point if we aren’t allowed to use the internet in the first place?
You’ll be even more surprised when you learn why the computer lab has decided to enforce these stupid rules. Since almost every PC is infected with viruses, their solution is to stop the problem at its source. By that logic, the Internet should be banned from the entire world. Computers should be banned because they alone are responsible in losing critical information that cause billions of dollars in losses every year.
What the Lab Staff calls security is actually the most sissified plan of all. They’re actually hiding from the problem, not solving it. An established security expert Bruce Schneier gave an amazing example of what security is.(this is not the exact quote but it gives out the same meaning)
Objective: Preventing a thief from stealing a secret note from a safe.
What Security Isn’t
- Store the Secret note in the safe and lock the safe with the key.
- Hide the Key in a secret location.
- Present the Safe to the thief and ask him to get the note. If he can’t open the safe, it is (apparently) secure.
What Security Is
- Store the Secret Note in the safe and lock the safe with the key.
- Present the safe to the thief along with the complete documentation of the safe, its working and what kind of key it requires and if with all this information he still can’t open the safe, that is real security.
As you can clearly see, the XIE comp lab staff has chosen the first approach which if put frankly is nothing but "chickening out"
I don’t see what they are gaining anyway from this process as their is a lot of chaos in the lab everytime someone wants to transfer some programs.
Why is surfing the internet a crime in XIE? Why is everyone against the students using the internet in college? Why are they preventing progress and innovation? Why are obstructing our pursuit of the Joy of Excellence?
Only they can tell.
