The Lonesome Road

This morning my uncle called up from Bombay. There was a live musical program taking place in Chennai and he wanted us to see it. To call it a musical program was actually a huge understatement. It was a sea of people sitting and singing. The function was part of a temple celebration where the best carnatic vocalists from all over south India had come to sing the songs of Tyagaraja. These songs part of the cultural fibre of south India and are sung with tremendous respect. They are still performed regularly - and it’s been over 150 years since they were penned. It was amazing to see the sheer number of people - ordinary people - singing and keeping pace with the master vocalists. I guess what they say is true - the best sound comes from many tones.

In other music related news, I’ve hit a new musical love - a-capella. I feel it’s a great expression of music, depending completely on the voices and co-ordination of the singers. And of all the groups I’ve heard so far, the best - by far - are The Yale Alley Cats . These guys are really good.

Nothing much more actually. College times have been shifted and the new time table has been posted.

Later folks….

The positive fallout of the Republic day celebrations yesterday was that we had power the entire day. Seems that the powers-that-be in MSEB had decided that the citizens of Pune should be able to see the parade. We were all pleasantly surprised when the power did not cut out at 9 as scheduled. But as usual, MSEB did have some tricks up it’s sleeve.

Making the most of the holiday, I decided to code a module for my project. Took up a pretty simple part - a connectivity mini-module. The trouble was that MSEB seemed to think my work was a joke. Three times the power went out. Not for very long - but just long enough that my UPS started making noises that put radiation warning noises to same. A few moments after the system would shut down, the power would come back on. Now if this happened once I could understand - but three times. So I finally gave up and coded it in the night .

Pune has started to heat up. It’s *hot* in the afternoon these days - and not as cool in the evenings. A welcome change - but I actually prefer cold weather - you can actually do something about it. Wear multiple layers of clothing, have a steaming mug of tea/soup/coffee - whatever works for you. But in the heat - there’s simply no option but to bear it. This city is going to fry in Mar-May. Also, considering that there is a 3000MW shortage now - I can only dread the load shedding system that will be implemented in summer.

Lastly, my college timings are going to be shifted. It’s going to start at 8AM and go on till 3PM. The holiday on Sunday is being shifted to Thursday and Tuesday will be a half day insteadof Saturday. Why? Simple actually. Load shedding has been playing havoc with our practical schedules. Hopefully this new time table will fix it.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Later!

Some time ago, a few students from Symbiosis College in Pune filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking to make helmets compulsory for two-wheelers - for drivers as well as pillion riders. The PIL took it’s own meandering route thorough our legal system, but was upheld by the Mumbai High Court. At this stage, it became a tool in the hands of the politicians who saw it’s use - both as a publicity gimmick and an election platform. Round 1 went to the politicians and the people who don’t like/want to wear a helmet while driving. The matter was shelved during the implementation phase itself. Now, one year later, it has returned - with the present government backing it whole heartedly. By law, it is now compulsory for the rider and the pillion rider to wear helmets. However, as usual, the grandstanding has begun. Local MLA’s have taken up the “cause” of the anti-helmet citizens once again. They are urging people not to wear helmets and promosing free lawyers for all people arrested by the police in this matter. Ultimately, the only people making money of this entire venture are the shop keepers who sell helmets and “helmets”. You see, all helmets are supposed to have an ISI mark. These helmets are (theoretically) tested for hardness and protection capabilities - and cost Rs.1200/- (appx 25 USD). But on one wants to spend so much money to protect their brain - so they buy a “helmet” - a duplicate at Rs.500/-. Driving down the road, you can see the brisk sale of helmets off the road side stands. Personally, I think it’s a good idea - a helmet *can* and in most cases will save you from serious head injury. However, given a choice, no one wants to spend on a helmet - so I do think this piece of legislation is welcome.

However, all the helmets in the world cannot save you from a bad driver. A student from my college was driving her vehicle last night when her life was snuffed out by a PMT (Pune Municipal Transport) bus. I don’t know the exact details save that she and her bike were crushed by the front wheels of the bus. It’s such a waste of a national resource - the youth of the country is what’s going to take it forward - and she’d just joined engineering. But this is nothing but the latest in a long series of accidents whose blame can be laid at PMT’s door. Last night, the citizens could take it no more and for a while, there was mob rule. Nine busues were stoned and destroyed before order was restored. The buses that ply this city are - well I really cannot describe them. It’s bad -really bad. The buses belch smoke, have seats whose stuffing is missing and have really bas suspensions. If you are behind one of these busus, you can actually see the list on them - they actually tip over slightly to one side. After a few accidents where people were sucked under the bus, the PMT put in side guards on the lower side panels between the wheels. As usual, these were flimsy wooden structures that served no actual purpose and it took a few more accidents before they were replaced by stronger steel brackets.

Considering the traffic sense of the pedestrians in this city, I still feel that the number of accidents that occur are low. It’s probably because the drivers now understand how they cross the road. Let me explain.

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Nothing much to write today. But I have taken a few photos. You can see them here .Am a little busy preparing for the project review. Updates on the project will be up soon

Later!

The temperature, which was at a pleasant 11 degrees has suddenly dropped. These days when we go to college at 0900, the temperature is a cool 6-7 degrees. Personally, since I wear a helmet and a jacket, it’s fine. The trouble is that I have no gloves, and by the time I get off the bike, I can’t feel my fingers

It’s a funny thing. Usually Pune has a large temperature variance in the dawn-afternoon-dusk phases, with the differences going upto 20 degrees. These days, even though the sun beats down, the air itself seems to be cold. Haven’t seen this in all my time here.

You know, most people say that the first six months of college are the hardest. New environment, you’re out of home for the first time, new syllabus and patterns of study. Well, all that is there. But I still say that it’s the last six months that are the hardest. Even as you enter these six months, it feels like the end of a stage in life is approaching. Most people put into motion the plans that they have in this time. Like me - I’ve put in my admission for M.S programs abroad. It’s a period of waiting - and a time to finish. To a large extent, this is the time when people really go their separate ways - people you’ve known for the last four years. Personally, I’m waiting to finish this part of my life and start something new. These are exciting times, and something new is just waiting - and it’s just a few months away.

To tomorrow!

The Government of Maharashtra finally woke up to the fact that they cannot afford the cost of the free power they have been doling out. For those in the dark (pun intended), one of the election promises made by the current ruling party was free power for all farmers. In order to reduce this huge expenditure, the government is proposing a few new rulings.

1) All farmers who need free power will have to get a certificate stating that they are in fact, farmers. Now this makes absolutely no sense - in our country, getting papers like this, is no big deal.

2) The free power bonanza will continue only till March 2005. I’m pretty sure that this ruling will not go dow too well with the “farmers” used to the free power.

The forces of Industry in Pune then requested the government to provide an islanding system for Pune. Mumbai has been under such a system for quite some time - making a power cut a rarity. However, this goal cannot be achieved till June 2005. Also, islanding by June also depends on the power generating capacity of the city. There are two power plants that are not operational yet. In fact, one of them has just begun construction. I think June ‘05 is a very optimistic target.

In other news, gamers of the world, rejoice! Hardwarezone has come out with the “must-have” gamer PC’s for 2005. AMD fans please head here and all Intel lovers head here .

Right. That’s all from me for now. Have a great day!

The European Space Agency has finally started getting pictures back from the Huygens satellite. For those interested, a more up-to-date article can be found on the BBC Science News page. Looks like a lot of astronomers are going to be very happy

The latest trend in Pune seems to be singing brakes. Confused? Well, here’s the deal. It’s a simple circuit attached to the front or rear brake mechanism in the bike. It’s job - to play a series of tones - usually a current Bollywood song in a series of tinny notes. The irritation factor - well, you either like it, hate it or plain ignore it. I personally fall into the third category. Though I must admit, the first time I heard it, I was seriously questioning the state of my auditory canal. It was at a busy signal and all of a sudden I hear a series of notes, seemingly out of nowhere . Found out about the mechanism from a friend later.

In other news, a couple of local leaders want concrete structures to be built along the Mumbai shoreline in order to house the local fishermen. They say that if the tsunami strikes again, the damage caused will be less. Along similar lines, the government of Tamil Nadu wants Rs.1500 crore in order to construct a sea wall. When are these people going to understand - the forces that they are trying to stop will brush concrete aside like tissue paper. In fact, the loss to life caused may be greater since huge chunks of concrete will be present in the water.

Finally, for all you Ravenloft fans, the guys at the Fraternity of Shadows have come out with the latest installment in their Quoth the Raven series. It’s a book full of fan fiction on Ravenloft and Book 11 is now available on their site.

Enjoy!

It’s been a mixed week in college - and a period of change. There are two divisions in the final year of comp engg - division A and B. These divisions were made last semester on the basis of the electives that we had chosen. In order to reduce the confusion caused by reassigning roll numbers and restructuring the divisions, the powers that be decided that the divisions would be kept intact. Adjustments would be done to make sure that the electives for the students were not affected. Now, when we have Unix, it’s a mixture of the two divisions and at the same time, the other half has a HPN lecture. Works out pretty well.

Within classes, students are divided into batches for practicals. The mixed batch for Unix practicals were A and B, whereas those for HPN were C and D. Each batch comprises between 15-20 students. By virtue of my surname and my elective, I was in batch A. Man, it was great. Wednesdays were low load as we had no practicals on that day and no practicals on Saturday morning. Yesterday, all that went for a toss. Our class-in-charge made an announcement that effective immediately, A and B batches have shifted to the schedules of C and D batches respectively and vice verca. The problem is that we now have a break in the middle of the day. It’s basically three hours between lectures where we have nothing to do. Planning to use this time to work on our projects.

Our prof for Multimedia Techniques has been changed. The funny part is that she was our class-in-charge as well. We now have a C-in-C who does not teach us anything . Our college has also started a Guardian Professor system. Basically they have taken the load of managing the entire class off the c-in-c and passed it on to the different professors in the department. Pretty sensible.

We were supposed to have a project review on 17th and 18th. We had to show the ideas, requirement analysis, evaluations and timelines that we have come up with so far. Sample code (i.e a module) presentation was also a possibility. That has now been postponed by a week.

What else….The W32 virus and it’s variants are back in full swing. Beware of e-mails from known people with a subject called Information which have an attachment. Simply delete it.

There is more stuff that I wanted to write - but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

Adios!

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Light in the dark , originally uploaded by shadowfall.

‘Twas 11:30 in the night,
I was getting bored,
Looked up and saw the light,
And at once my heart soared.

Took up my digi-cam,
And turned off the flash,
Stood balanced on the bed,
And prayed I wouln’t crash.

The focus set,
I looked at the screen,
Pressed the required button,
And the result can be seen.

Please excuse the bad “poetry”

Later!

Well - the page has been changed. The new commenting system courtesy Anshul who took time out to redo my blog when making the changes in his own

Thanks dude!

Anshul just moved site! You can find his new home on Blogger here . Welcome to Blogger dude!

In other news, may change the commenting system on my site from Haloscan to BloggerHacks so all my previous comments are going to diappear… Change is inevitable I guess ( except from a vending machine ).

Later all!

There seems to be some problem with my sound system. I’ve changed my sound card from a SBLive! to an Audigy 2 Value. Using Creative 4.1 4400 as my speaker system. They used to work fine on my Live! card. Output from all channels.

What has happened now is that unless I turn on CMSS 3D on my Creative Software, my rear channel is turned off. CMSS is usually used for 5.1 upmixing - and I don’t think I need it.

If anyone has faced this problem/has a workaround - please let me know.

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Laughing Kid, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

Well, I finally did it. For all those who read this post, I was talking about Akshat - the little dude in the photo. Absolutely refuses to smile when he sees the camera. This photo is courtesy the effort of 4 people. One is the dude himself, second is my father - akshat is relaxing on his feet, third in line is my mother who had to distract him so that I (number four) could take the picture.

Hope you like it!

I was dragged by my sister to see Alexander yesterday. Will have to repay the “favour” someday. The movie was awful. It’s a period drama consisting of scenes of melodrama interspersed with battles full of blood and gore and scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a soap opera. By the time the movie was over I was so, so bored. The character of Alexander did not come across as a great leader or a good general. He seemed to be a very confused person in life. In all these period movies there seems to be a tendency to idolize the protagonist. Seems wierd. Also there are several historical liberties taken in the film. For example, Alexander is supposed to have dies of disease - here he dies of an arrow to the chest. I actually felt worse for his horse when it was killed. Also there was no battle with the forces of Porus. Anyway, I guess these liberties are required to make the movie work. All in all a very dull film.

If this wasn’t bad enough, I had an amateur historian next to me who kept explaining all aspects of the movie to his girlfriend in sufficient detail to put a classroom to sleep. Also, the bane of all performances - the cell phone was in action. I don’t get it - almost every phone has a vibrator mode these days - but no - the ringtones must be heard by all the people around. Grow up guys - everyone has a phone now.

Nothing much in college today. Basic introduction to Parallel Processing Systems and that’s all. Will keep posting.

That’s all for now…

Ah well. the final semester of engineering has begun. Had to go report in college yesterday. Not much of a workload though. We have a 4 1/2 day week this semester. Monday has been designated as project day - so we don’t have college and saturday is a half day. Not a bad working week.

Project work is back in flow. Ideally, our group would like to finish it by feb end so that the documentation, bug fixing and upgrades can be done in an unhurried manner.

That’s all for now - keep reading to see how the last six months unfold

Later all…