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2014 : My Year in Review

2015-01-01T04:36:00.000+05:30

My name in Japanese

2014 has been a year filled with lot of excitement and thrill. In the last 365 days, I have done quite a few things for the first time.

Leaving India

I moved away from Bangalore for the first time in my life. Officially, I have lived away from 560085 for more than three months.
Resigned(?) from my first full-time job. I enjoyed the last two years with the few good friends I made at TI.

Studying at Thunderbird

Incoming Class of 2014 - Thunderbird

I have been enrolled in the MBA program at Thunderbird. So far it has been a exciting ride for me. The curriculum has more of concepts and less of calculations, the classes are conducted through case-studies not just lectures, and finally, I do most of my coursework in teams. The most appealing aspect in school is working with people from different parts of the world - no, I haven't learnt any abuses from other languages yet.
Started driving on the right hand side of the road. Unconsciously, I did steer towards the left hand side of the road, but, was immediately corrected by my brother.

Hiked Mountains

Kumara Parvatha - This was my first trek. I enjoyed scaling the three boulders, which was a total surprise for me, making bonfire in the cold and whistles which were used to communicate within our group.
Roopkund trek in the Himalayas - This was my first Himalayan trek. The best part of the trek was the trek team which was fun to be with. Eating Ghee rice - Dal for a week and nail-biting cold was quite uncomfortable but all was forgotten amidst the scenic beauty of the Himalayas. I feel, more than the final destination - Roopkund lake - the trail is more enjoyable.

Roopkund in the background
Camelback Mountain - Snowed capped Himalayas to the rocky trek in urban Phoenix. The best part of Camelback mountain is that you can finish the hike within three hours, so you can start your day with it or end your evening on the peak. The peak offers a good view of the city landscape too.

View from the top of Camelback mountain
Brown's peak - The road to the trail is more difficult than the trail itself. The enjoyable part of this trek is the rock climbing. You also have to be aware of the cactus on few rocks. On the trail you get a beautiful view of the lake beside the mountain.

Visited new places

Havelock Island

Andaman & Nicobar Islands - My first organised trip with MakeMyTrip. The islands seem to be isolated with the huge population of rest of India. The tourist places are pretty much unexploited. This trip was a nice break from the over-populous tourist places in India. It has one of the most beautiful beaches in Asia. After this trip's experience, I prefer MMT for future family trips.
Dubai - Money can buy the Sheikhs anything. They have built a magnificent city in a desert. Dining in the Burj-al-Arab, the one-minute elevator ride in Burj Khalifa and roaming the different themed areas at the Ibin-Batuta Mall are a highlight of this trip.

Oak Creek Trail in Fall colors

Sedona - A few red rocks pulls so many tourists that an entire city has been built. The 3 hour Oak Creek trail was aesthetic for the fall colours.
Philadelphia - I was in this historic city for a couple of days only. I managed to watch the screening of a theater recording in a public park and roamed near the Ben Franklin bridge in the dead of the night. I didn't try the Philly steaks - one for the future.

Misc

I completed a 10k in an hour.

Completed TCS 10k Bangalore
I bought my first laptop, for my graduate coursework which means I can now play new games than just Most Wanted and Rise of Nations.
Finished Limbo - beautiful but short game, started Civilization V and Portal 2, and addicted to Dota 2.
Experienced Black Friday and Halloween

I am really happy with what I have accomplished in the last one year. It was indeed a happy and prosperous 2014. I hope next year will bring much more joy.

Happy New Year!

2048 : Completed

2014-03-17T21:39:00.000+05:30

After more than a week of trying, I successfully completed 2048! This is one of the games which I tracked the rise through its showcasing on hacker news and got forked multiple times to add interesting angles to this simple ~~game~~puzzle. To learn more about the game and it's fork, go here.

I scored 20440 points at 2048, a game where you join numbers to score high! #2048game http://t.co/PEfgnRzEwA Done and dusted :D
— Jayadeep T P (@jayadeeptp) March 17, 2014

Screenshots below:
Well the moment I realised I was almost there :)

And the end...

Then, I got greedy, I kept going!

The reception of this game has amazed me. It was a "inspired" version of an already famous iOS game. But, that didn't stop programmers from forking the project multiple times and simplifying it to an extent that one person made it possible to play it on command line!

Edit: Pushed myself to double my high score and also reach 4096!

Intruding Privacy

2013-06-08T12:05:00.001+05:30

The last few days have been difficult for the Obama administration to control the outrage against allegations, which have now been accepted by the administration, against the NSA 'spying' on foreign nationals (or Americans, unintentionally). Firstly, there was a leaked, of course, document stating that Verizon has been court ordered to provide broad details of any telephonic communication done on their network. Next Washington Post comes along with a few leaked, of course, slides and data about a NSA program called PRISM. PRISM essentially collects data from the big internet companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple etc and helps the NSA create a report on foreign nationals and some american nationals, unintentionally of-course.

These revelations have bought utmost outrage against the Government and the NSA. I don't think they deserve it.

Let's say they are onto one's internet trail. They have captured the email transactions, social network activities (which are mostly public already) and bank transfers. I am pretty sure the people at NSA have a better alternative than to read the millions, if not billions, of email sent daily. Nor do they worry about your bank details. They have access to a Fed Bank. They don't care about peanuts in your bank accounts.

What these programs have to do with the public? They are not meant for the majority of us. They are safety precautions to help NSA (and other abbreviated Govt. organisations) to keep tabs on the law offenders. It is better to be safe than sorry. These are the same people who would have, in some way, helped catch the Boston terrorists in just days. And, such programs cannot be made public. With national security at risk, these are not to be disclosed.

Whenever I read an article on the same lines, I remind myself of one of my favorite quotes :

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place --- Eric Schmidt

I read the news of Obama defending these arguments of intruding privacy. He terms it as "modest encroachments on privacy". I don't really think they are modest but this shows what they are capable of. But he is right when he says "There are trade-offs invovled".

I would be surprised and happy if we had such programs in India too. Then I would atleast stop uploading all my photos on Dropbox, Google+. Anyways, they will have a copy. And with college students hacking around CBSE ICSE websites, I should be able to access my photos uploads right?

Book Read: The Secret Wishlist

2013-05-08T17:46:00.000+05:30

I usually don't buy fiction books by Indian authors. I am not biased, I just go by the popular name. I borrow books from friends who recommend it. But I did something new on one March afternoon; I bought The Secret Wishlist by Preethi Shenoy. {And, I feel sad it took me more than a month to publish this post.}
I did read the summary on back cover. I must accept that it made me curious. A girl falls in love at sixteen, but, she is married off in pakka Indian arranged marriage style. After few years she meets her true love and this leads to mental crisis. As John F Kennedy said

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger, the other opportunity." - John F. Kennedy

And the author uses this opportunity to tell us the story of Diksha
First few pages were really interesting. I liked the way the author kept moving between the past and the present. But soon the real intentions of the characters are revealed and the story goes in a slow(boring) pace to have a hasty climax.

Pros:

Different story. I had never ventured into books centered on extra martial affairs and sorts.
The book also is lesson on work-life balance. 3 people who work their ass off and end up in contrasting situations.

Cons:

I didn't really need a dictionary while reading the book. So, it doesn't help you improve your vocab much.
After the first few chapters, everything is predictable and I begged the book ended sooner.
I hated the story, what the characters chose to do. In the end it is the author's story but the protagonist makes ridiculous choices and the worst part is she even defends those choices every time.

The concept of extra-martial affair though touched and indulged by the protagonist, the author doesn't really highlight it. Instead, she claims all the actions taken are in the name of freedom, an entity everyone claims but no one has it.

After I read the book, I felt I had wasted my time and started cribbing why I had not finished the other novel from Jeffrey Archer - Not a Penny Less, Not a Penny More(By the way, I have finished the book now, and it is fablous, you should read that instead). I don't recommend this book to anyone.

Life of Pi : Book>>Movie

2012-12-14T15:15:00.000+05:30

If you haven't watched Life of Pi already then you are missing a 'beautiful' movie. So, go watch it if you can.
I saw the trailer of the movie 'Life of Pi' sometime in August(2012). I felt it was really thrilling and scary. A indian kid, a lone survivor of the Tsimtsum, survives the hardships of the seas along with a Royal Bengal Tiger(RBT). It is very eye-catchy. The big RBT does not eat a boy in the whole of their journey; a journey on a life boat! The only time I remember reading about the strength of the Royal Bengal Tiger was in HC Verma (Physics Text) - one strike coming from the Bengal Tiger's paw is equivalent to 50 kilo newton of force. This was huge and I could not believe a four-legged animal could generate such amount of force in a fraction of a second.

Once I saw the trailer and came to know that the movie was based on a book, I became more enthusiastic to read the book. Thankfully, my sister had buoght the book in the summer. Once I was finished with Kane and Abel, I decided to read Life of Pi. I wanted to finish it before I watch the movie;before 23rd November, the release date of the movie. I did finish the book in time.
The experience of reading the book was quite different to my previous books. This was my first non-fiction book. Initially, the author builds up the childhood of the boy(pi). Though I felt boring about this in the beginning I soon could relate it to the later events in Pi's ordeal. This was THE book which explained every detail of the environment. I was just mesmerized how could Pi even remember such fine details from childhood.

Pros: In-detail explanation of Pi's journey across the Pacific; not just a sea-survival story!
Cons: Story becomes very slow sometimes. The naration is not well paced. This is might be due to the fact that Pi, had to remember and re-narrate the entire story.

Now that I had finished the book, I was 'ready' to watch the movie and then declare "The book was better than the movie. Hands down". Knowing how well the book was, I didn't have much expectations from the silver screen. Moreover, few of my friends already had mentioned me that the movie was a bore. I saw the movie with a expectation of knowing how would Hollywood make an Indian boy survive the sea on a life boat. I was astonished. I could not just believe that such beautiful creatures existed in the oceans. I had read about it, but, my imagination was not enough. I never thought the oceans to be so beautiful. All I saw was more beautiful scenery and of course, a Royal Bengal Tiger and how Pi survived the sea with the tiger.

I realised, even though most of them says "The book was better" why they always go to make a movie out of a book. The book sows an idea and the reader has to build upon it, upto to his imagination's limit. If a person never knows how a Tiger will snarl, he can never really understand what happens when the author says a tiger snarled. On the other hand, movie breaks that barrier and tries to expand the limit of human imagination. It will show how a Tiger will snarl and how a boy fought for his life in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

The movie tried most of the important things from the book (and a little more extra) but ofcourse you cannot depict the entire book in 120 minutes. I have not seen a more beautiful movie than 'Life of Pi' but if you are looking for a thrilling action and adventure, you will be disappointed. If you haven't watched Life of Pi already then you are missing a 'beautiful' movie. So, go watch it if you can.

Enjoyable experience: Kane and Abel

2012-11-19T15:49:00.000+05:30

I usually don't read novels. But, off late due to my extended tour of Bangalore, thanks to the Bangalore traffic, I have made a habit to carry a book along with me. This way I make good use of the time rather than stare out of the window and hope my bus doesn't hit any of the two-wheelers beside.

One such book I started reading was Kane and Abel by Jeffery Archer. The book was recommended by a couple of my friends.

In short, the story is about two people, Kane and Abel, who are born and raised in contrasting environments but end up crossing each other's path. The common thing about both of them is: they are born on the same day and they are both very smart. They excel in all their endeavors but always come back to the little unnecessary feud they started. The book also shows how feuds are meaningless and don't serve any purpose than bringing all the parties involved down.
Pros:
The story is fast paced. The book covers the entire lifetime of the two people, hence, the story moves rather fast. The story also tries top include all the famous institutions at the time when the story takes place. This made the book even more interesting for me. In a way, the story of Kane is like a Hollywood movie, rich elegant and based on logic and knowledge, while, Abel's story is like a Bollywood story where luck overrides logic and the hero triumphs amidst adversary. The book made me to look up for few words on the dictionary. This is one of the reasons I read books- improve my vocabulary.
Cons:
The author doesn't really develop the environment; he just proceeds with the story. This is unlike few other authors like Dan Brown and John Grisham, who describe the situation as well as the environment which makes the story more enjoyable. The climax is very bad. The characters are built up so elegantly and they are killed so fast even before you realize it. I don't mind reading hundred more pages of the book if the story has the same grasping effect.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to enjoy a wonderful story. It's worth the time.

Horoscopes

2012-08-29T23:19:00.000+05:30

I might be an engineer graduate(will officially graduate this weekend) but I have some faith in things like horoscopes. So, I have a feeling to prove this horoscope is actually true. Every day, every horoscope I read is different in different sources. Probabilistically, one of those should match my daily experience and so to prove that horoscopes work and someone can predict your future. But the only catch being, we don't know which horoscope is our correct future. You have a million mobile apps, Facebook apps, Newspapers, Magazines and what not!
I realised that it is quite useless to read all those horoscopes because I would spend more time to shape my life to match one of those horoscopes, rather than do the things in the way I would have done. So, I came up with this brilliant idea that I would read the horoscopes at the end of the day. One of the horoscopes would definitely match my day's experience and I would feel very happy that I am leading my life according to the movement of stars. I told you it was a brilliant idea.
Today, I ended up reading the following horoscope in a mobile app which closely fits my day. However, the only problem is that today's horoscope tells me what to do tomorrow. I am in a big dilemma, whether to go on with the horoscope or go with the flow of life and take the chances to scare the Gods.

Cancer Aug 29 2012
Once again, Moonchild, you are faced with having to forgive someone. You sometimes have trouble with this concept, and so you probably need to be reminded that forgiveness is more for you than it is for those who have offended you. But the bigger problem with your current dilemma is that the one you need to forgive probably doesn't even think he/she needs to be forgiven. It's hard to be gracious when someone who has hurt you doesn't even acknowledge being the cause of the injury. But you have great power right now - the power to just let it go without analyzing it. Just let it go.
--
Copyright © DailyHoroscope.
Download it now — http://bit.ly/DHmobile

Job Hunt Ends Today

2012-07-02T20:55:00.000+05:30

Now, I can actually say, "My job hunt ends here". Maybe I could have said it a couple of weeks back but I just wanted to make sure.
When you are in the final year of the BE course you have an added burden of finding the right job. And that too when you are in the core course of ECE, the right job being a ECE-oriented job is even more hard to find. Sometime in July last year my job hunt started with an internship interview at LSI. I failed to clear it. This will be the first of my three tries at LSI.
My job hunt could have ended with my internship itself. Unfortunately(or fortunately ?), I couldn't get a clear offer from Lattice Semiconductor. A month and a half ago, I was holding an offer from Wipro(IT) and preparing for my last semester's finals. What amazes me is that I never thought I would take so much time to find a job. No one ever told it would be so difficult to find a job. I had fun in trying my luck at the best companies in India but it is a different feeling when you walk after you hear the words"you can leave for the day". My experience with job-hunting can be classified into the following cases, I think I have experienced pretty much all the possible cases.

I was rejected after the written round.
I was rejected after the technical round.
I was rejected after the HR round.
I was rejected after being offered the job. yeah, this is possible. they just blamed the bad economy for the mess.
and then, the best part, I cleared all the rounds and I was offered the job. This happened thrice(without considering the previous case).

Anyway, I have decided to choose TI among the offers I had. From this job-hunting season I take away that you need to be ready and to be dynamic in planning, as well as, execution of the plan because no one can guarantee that anything will happen as expected.

Talent takes you to the doorstep but only luck will help you to open the door

#PESITmemories

2012-05-29T01:14:00.000+05:30

Monday, the 28/5/2012. It was not going to be just another monday. Many of my classmates and myself had our final final-exam of 4-year BE degree, a Final year Project Presentation. By 4pm we had finished with our presentations and as we headed home, on the way, we made a routine visit to a eatery nearby.
Everything was the same. Nothing was amiss from the previous day. I played a couple of games of FIFA 12 before I had to surrender the TV to my parents who were interested to watch TV9 for more exclusive coverage of Jagan Mohan Reddy's arrest.
As usual, picked up my phone and let some tweets out before I spotted this:

Are we trending#PESITmemories?? RT: @sachingowda: #PESITmemories - Sitting in OAT and having lunch with some people
— Gowrav Shenoy (@gshny) May 28, 2012

And this

Shall we trend #PESITmemories?? PESIT people plz reply...
— Gowrav Shenoy (@gshny) May 28, 2012

Let the riot begin :-P "@gshny: Shall we trend #PESITmemories?? PESIT people plz reply..."
— Jayadeep T P (@jayadeeptp) May 28, 2012

Sometimes, as they say, the mass will be ready just a spark will be missing! So few PESITians started to tweeted their sweetest memories of PESIT. This few grew large enough to send it onto the top of trending lists of Bangalore and India.
So here are some of the tweets which I liked. The tweets are from a small group of PESITiams whom I follow

Hoax Bomb call #PesitMemories
— Guruprasad Alse (@SumneGuru) May 28, 2012

Way to go!! RT @varun_mp #PESITmemories NO 1 in Bangalore trends :)
— Sachin Gowda G (@sachingowda) May 28, 2012

Every speech began with this one :) RT: @nithdotin: in 1976..........gymkhana.......#PESITmemories
— Gowrav Shenoy (@gshny) May 28, 2012

Thank you #PESIT for everything. Awesome Seniors, Juniors, Friends. #PesitMemories
— Pradeep Nayak (@prdpnayak) May 28, 2012

#PESITmemories .. @mvvijesh & I discussing the possibility of a photography club in college at the end of 1st semester! @PixelsPesit
— Priya Prakash (@pricelessjunk) May 28, 2012

Well this is twitter so you should expect this #spam

@jayadeeptp Free Identity Theft Protection Incredible ! Pretty amazing
— felipe.s.palmeira (@felipespalmeira) May 28, 2012

And back with #PESITmemories

And we've just gone No. 1 in India with #PESITmemories, folks!
— Anand M S (@yemmay) May 28, 2012

@sachingowda Dont sleep till it goes to top 1 #PesitMemories
— Guruprasad Alse (@SumneGuru) May 28, 2012

everyone rushing to big bazaar to buy white shirt,black pant,tie combo for first DAC :P #PESITmemories
— nithin a (@nithdotin) May 28, 2012

Typical Gals :P #nooffence RT: @pricelessjunk: #PESITmemories Patafying all the external examiners by talking to them in kannada :P
— Gowrav Shenoy (@gshny) May 28, 2012

this EPIC circular... this can happen only in PESIT#PESITmemories twitter.com/ipraveenkrishn…
— praveen krishna (@ipraveenkrishna) May 28, 2012

being updated with current political situations with contradicting views thanks to @rohitbhatta & @yemmay #PESITmemories
— Susheel Kumar (@callmesusheel) May 28, 2012

#PESITmemories watching a football ground turn into a two-storey parking-lot #ithappens
— Jayadeep T P (@jayadeeptp) May 28, 2012

Cant forget watching the Cricket World Cup 2011 final on a huge screen at college auditorium . #PESITmemories
— Jayadeep T P (@jayadeeptp) May 28, 2012

The Mysterious Graffiti Wall !! #PESITmemories
— varun punganur (@varun_mp) May 28, 2012

#PESITmemories Talking DJ to getting the apple logo painted on the graffiti wall! And he did!
— Priya Prakash (@pricelessjunk) May 28, 2012

I am sure most of my followers would have muted the pesit hashtag... Sorry folks.. My college and i am proud of it.. :)
— Gowrav Shenoy (@gshny) May 28, 2012

never can u sit at peace in the OAT. some guy will start whistle podu. #PESITmemories — Susheel Kumar (@callmesusheel) May 28, 2012

As #NBT said 'Pride Forever Business Never' "@mvvijesh: The ever-empty Campus Store! #PESITmemories"— Jayadeep T P (@jayadeeptp) May 28, 2012

#PESITmemories Yes our college makes us miserable. But we're proud of it. And intensely so. — Anand M S (@yemmay) May 28, 2012

OK. I thought of putting many more tweets but I really became tired of scrolling down - the tweets were going on...You can catch all the tweets here.
I am pretty sure neither @sachingowda nor @gshny thought #PESITmemories will become so big.Yes, we made #PESITmemories to trend at the number one spot on Indian trend list within 2 hrs, less than a SEE paper duration :D.
I am really proud to be a pass-out from PESIT and I am also happy that I was involved in helping #PESITmemories trend on Twitter on this Monday, the 28th May, 2012.

First Step into the Corporate World

2012-02-20T10:31:00.000+05:30

4 years ago, I made a choice; for good or bad, I wanted to be an engineer. The engineer I dreamt was very different to what I am today or what I will end up being after 6 months. Each year my view of an engineer became clearer. It was neither a bad profession nor was it perfect. I made up my mind; I need to 'earn' a job before doing my higher studies.

Well I needed someone to hire me first. I had the opportunity to give many interviews but I struck gold only my seventh time! I got an intern-ship at Lattice Semiconductors this past week. It is not exactly 'gold' at least a golden opportunity to showcase my talent (or whatever is left of it). My friend Varun too made it through and interns at the same place.

Today was the first day at 'office'. Majority of my life, 18 years out of 21, I have been a student going to a school (except for 2 years in PU) for being taught lessons/subjects. Suddenly, I realized this was going to be different I was no more a student. I didn’t go to a school; I went to an 'office'. It was something new to me, few of my friends too, had already been-there, done-that. It always baffled me. How will it be? Will you get pampered? Will you get punished? Will you get appreciated? Nothing of such sort happened to me on the first day.

First day, I was late to 'office'. I had to report at 9am but thanks to Bengaluru's traffic, I reached there by 930am. It was still cool, only few had turned up at the workplace. I think they had a wonderful weekend. Next, I was briefed about the kind of work what I might be assigned. This was the highlight moment, when I politely refused to drink a cup of tea. Now the 'real' work for the day began, reading the datasheets of the company's products. I didn't even read the 8051 micro-controller datasheet properly for my course!

Next up, lunch at 1245, looks like they already know PESIT's timetable, good for me. It was a 'Special Day' for the 'team' as the interns were arriving, so we go out for lunch at Silsila restaurant - pretty decent, but needs to get more customers.

I was back to the most-interesting work, reading datasheets. Between 2pm and 3pm I fell asleep twice. The last time I woke up was when the tea was served. This time I couldn’t stop but drink the tea. Caffeine removes drowsiness or something like that. I suspect my mentor, saw me taking a power nap, we started to chit-chat. As we finished our tea, he told me to get back to work.

At 530pm I was still staring at the monitor trying to understand digital electronic concepts. A look at the watch reminded me of my satellite work which stretched onto 7pm some days. This was when my mentor made his way out. After 15 minutes my friend and I left the ‘office’ to attack the roads of Bengaluru.

How was the first day? Not bad, I was pampered but also warned of punishment, if things didn’t go right. I think the next 3 months will be a good experience to go through the intern world of corporate before making the jump. It was not even a peek into the actual ‘work’ that is done, but at least got an idea of what people in tall buildings do in A/C rooms in front of their monitors.

My Ice Cream Sandwich

2011-10-30T23:45:00.001+05:30

A couple of weeks earlier, Google released the next version of Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich. In honour of that I made my own Ice Cream Sandwich :-D.
I hope Samsung ports ICS to my phone soon!

FIFA 12 Demo

2011-09-15T22:54:00.001+05:30

Firstly, if you didn't know already, the demo version of FIFA 12 is out.

Secondly I tried it out on my ps3. And finally I was very very disappointed.
FIFA 12 is the most awaited game of this year. I was excited with all the new features they had mixed. Precision dribbling along with tactical defending and player impact engine was too much to resist. It seemed very nice. Moreover I think the bits of info the Twitter account of EA sports were giving was indeed interesting. With such excitement I began the download of FIFA 12 demo from the PSN store yesterday.
As usual I left the download to complete through the night. I installed it, first thing in the morning. The game started, selected my favorite club as FC Barcelona (Manutd not available in demo) . It was FIFA time (-morning 7am, glad my mom didn't see me playing).
Not so fast EA wanted to teach me some defending skills. The new defending skills are confusing and the worst part of the game. It took me 10 minutes to finish the tutorial itself. According to me, the standing tackle concept is removed. They have replaced with a new 'tackle' concept using which the players keep their foot front regardless of where the ball is. Yes it sounds so idiotic that it makes the defending impossible. After the tutorial I started the exhibition match thinking that I could survive the 6min match.
Barcelona vs OM.
I had to take the first touch, my routine game began, set my styles as counter attack and team pressing, made the move which usually creates crossing chance early in the game. Missed the header. And the AI got the possession of the ball. And after that I just made three touches on the ball. All three of them by the goalie.
Yes it was shameful, but atleast I didn't concede any goals ibm the match. Needless to say the match was draw. The defending is tough in the sense that there is no clear move to recover the ball. You get it if the AI throws away the possession or if he shoots and your goalie holds on to it. Your defenders keep running behind the AI.
A couple of games in the evening made me understand I had to keep a little more possession. This is when I saw the bad effects of tactical defending. The AI defenders don't press your team very much. You can dribble past them by using the sprint button. This is worse than FIFA 11 defending. However if the game build up is slow the defenders indeed covered ground and gave some competition. But still the wings are unprotected (untouched).
Also another bad thing I saw was the buggy graphics. Players tend to mix too much.
The good thing you can take away from the demo is the fact that the game is a demo version and the full version will usually be bug free and complete. The game is so buggy that Fabregas plays for both Barcelona and Arsenal. Some of the transfers are not yet effected.
The defending has to be different else there will be total chaos, every dribble has a chance of becoming a goal.
Even with all the complains I have I would still buy the game. I just want to see what is there in this game that it won 20 awards at the E3.

My new phone

2011-07-31T22:15:00.003+05:30

I previously had an Nokia N95 mobile which i liked very much. Though it didn't have touch, a new trend among mobile phones, it had a pure multitasking experience. It runs all the applications in the background and you could close them when you wanted them to close. Moreover, it had a beautiful camera 5MP.

Well if I had such a wonderful phone you must be wondering why did I replace it. Sometimes I seem to have "butter fingers". When you drop your phone flat on its screen from 5 feet above the ground, you don't expect to see it again in one piece. At least my N95 was not in one piece :-(. After this incident i had no choice but to change my phone. But, I changed to an old model phone from Nokia. No multitasking and no 3G, but it was nice for messaging. so there started my search for a better phone.

After 3 months of waiting and pondering over which phone or rather which OS I must be using, I settled on Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android (Gingerbread). Why this phone particularly? This is the best phone on paper, beats even the iPhone4. And also that iPhone 4 was coming to the end of its lifecycle, no point buying it before the release of a newer iteration of iPhone. Another nice phone was HTC Sensation, but I didn't consider it because HTC doesn't have a service centre in Bengaluru.

It has been nearly a month with my new phone and I love it. Though I have not explored it very much, I have made myself familiar with some apps. The best part of the phone is its weight. It feels like a feather but with a large screen. My favorite apps include Twitter, Dolphin Browser, Handcent SMS , Google Maps, Places, Gmail, Google Plus and of course the (8MP) Camera. Android lacks Games unlike iOS. The first game everyone links Android with is Angry Birds and yeah I have them. I expect many more games to be released in the coming months.

Just a week ago I discovered my phone (or rather the camera has Pink Spot Syndrome. This means that there will be a pink tinge at the centre of the photograph. This is abnormal and no one seems to know the cure for it. Some say on the internet that 70% of the S2 suffer from it. Moreover, you will observe it only while clicking low light pictures. Also the phone has a bad overheating problem. The battery back-up is less than what I expected. S2 has the largest of the batteries so I presume I must be over using the 3G internet.

All in all I feel I have bought myself one of the best if not the best phone in the market. More importantly I like the phone.

My first freebie

2011-07-08T21:57:00.000+05:30

I am usually not good at getting freebies or getting picked at lotteries & similar kinda things. But I do take part in some of the giveaways which some good web sites do. For example, TechCrunch does one or two monthly, usually the latest device in the market. While other than that I have seen in IndianVideoGamer, who hold contests for ps3/xbox/pc games.

While I was searching for some game reviews of inFamous I cane across the site called GamingBolt. This is exactly similar to IVG without the community. So one such contest I entered was Dirt 3 contest. We had to answer a simple question and they would pick the lucky winner for the Dirt 3 game. When I checked the comments section only 20+ people had entered the contest so I presumed I had a good shot at winning the game. So I entered the contest. When I checked back a day before the contest closing date, I was surprised to find 102 comments. I was really confident I wouldn't win the contest.
However, one day I got an email from one Rashim Sayed,he is supposed to be the owner of GamingBolt, telling me I had won the game. I then gave my delivery address to him. I was still very doubtful of all this because I found out GamingBolt was an American website and I didn't think they would mail it to India.

T-Shirt with Dirt 3 disc

But, today I am astonished that they have indeed mailed me the ps3 copy of Dirt 3 and even sent a Assassin's creed T-shirt along with it! I really appreciate GamingBolt for sending the package to me.
I am happy that I now have 7 new games, including Dirt 3, to game on my ps3. But, I have only one thing in scarce - TIME !

When my PS3 died for a day!

2011-06-12T12:59:00.000+05:30

Sometimes the most feared events occur to the unexpected times. One such incident was my Play Station3 giving a scare just after SONY announced their "Welcome Back" Package for PSN users. I was really happy with the package as I always wanted to play inFamous and Little Big Planet. Obviously I opted for inFamous and Little Big Planet (and the other games also :P). However, I saw that the installation files were really huge. So I had to download these games only in the night as the Internet is more or less always used in our home. So first games I downloaded were the ones with smaller files - Little Big Planet (and et al) . I kept inFamous for the last; the setup file is 7000+ MB. All other games are in the range of 2GB. After the small games I went on to try Playstation Plus service. First thing I saw was Burnout: Paradise City was free for Plus service. So I decided that first. By the time I saw Burnout on PSN, the other games were already downloaded with the exception of inFamous. Since Burnout was available till 14th June I thought I better finish with Burnout. The setup file was only 3GB so I thought in 1 day the whole game will be done downloading. This is where my problem started.

The next day, I checked the download it was 50% done. I cursed BSNL for some time and went on to my routine. Sometime in the evening I noticed that the PS3 had switched off. No one had touched through the day. So I didn't really understand why it had switched off. Anyways I switched on my PS3 and it started behaving a little abnormal. Every operation was slow. But then I observed a new OS version had been out so tried to install that. It installed correctly, but still it acted weirdly. So I decided to take PS3 into recovery mode. Once there I restored default settings of PS3 (bad move). This was not required. Well we always do stupid things. Maybe I should have called the Customer Care. Restoring Default settings erased the PSN login data which meant PS3 gave new names to all the profiles on my system. I tried to change the names to the old ones. But the system started to give up. I couldn't switch off the system, the light would keep blinking and the system would restart (which happens when it is hung), but still wouldn't switch off. Consequently, I had to pull the power cord. Each time I did this my PS3 became more complicated to handle. At one stage, no icons appeared, just rotating arrows, which usually indicating the software is loading. Even waiting for 10 minutes didn't help. I didn't know what to do. When I tried to ring up the customer care, automated answering machine said the service was open only from 9am to 730pm. It was already 10pm. So I turned towards the Internet community. After despairingly searching for a solution I concluded from various threads that the main problem might be corruption of data on the Hard Disk. One person had suggested that I upgrade my Hard disk. Another source suggested that I try to "Restore File System" from the recovery mode. I tried this option too and prayed it would work. Alas it didn't help. Every time I went into recovery mode I had to switch off the PS3. After few times, I felt very guilty of pulling the power cord each time. So I stopped. I went to bed wishing the Customer Care would serve me a solution.

First thing in the morning I did was to call the Customer Care. He directed me to take the system to the service centre as I had already done the preliminary steps to check for errors. At the service centre, I thought they would give me a solution instead I had an option- Either to keep my faulty PS3 or to exchange it for a discounted brand new PS3. The worst part of the visit to the service centre was that they didn’t even know what the problem was and didn’t really care what it was. All they said was - "PS3 is irreparable in India", "If you want we can provide a discount on the new PS3 you buy". This was not according to my plan. I wanted everything which I had downloaded the past week-the welcome back pack, everything else on the hard drive. So I thought -"My PS3 is dead". Dreadful news for me but I couldn't do anything. It was 18 months since I bought my PS3 which meant, the warranty is not applicable.

Almost everywhere on the internet they suggest you to make a back-up and then use System Restore which makes your PS3 Off-the-shelf (except for the OS). So I tried that, my last hope. But then I realised the back-up wouldn't include any games. So what about the games? I had to download them again. It is even irritating to imagine downloading those games again. I switched on my PS3; again those evil rotating arrows showed up, I pulled the plug. Sometime in the evening I realised that I had some important photos which I had put only on PS3 and didn’t have a copy anywhere else. To confirm I switched on PS3, to my surprise the icons appeared. I waited, and then went back and forth in the menu, to see if there was any lag, there was nothing. Then checked downloads section, Burnout still was at 70%. I was happy all data was as before. The left the download to finish so left it as it is. I checked again after 30 minutes, still found the download status at 70%. This was not good. I checked if other games were downloading. All were fine except Burnout. So I had to do it - I cancelled the download. The offer on Burnout was still valid, so again I downloaded it. I left it to download all night. The download was done. The game installed fine. Next I checked if games were booting correctly. Everything was fine.

But I still can't figure out what was wrong with my PS3. It was not the deadly, YLOD or the Red light of Death problem. Maybe it was corrupted Hard Disk. And, of course continuous use, I had kept it on for roughly 36 hours straight!

Now I am happy, but also cautious.I don't want to struggle with my PS3 again! Oh God not again. Not my PS3. The HORROR!!!

Trip to "The Scotland of India"

2011-03-28T21:59:00.000+05:30

The last time I was on vacation with my friends was to Kerala during the summer holidays. Before that we had been to a trip to North India. Both of these were too long. No one had so much time to spare now, so, we decided to go to Coorg or Kodagu or Madikeri for short weekend Holiday. It turned out to be an awesome plan. :)
Each time we took a trip we always used to go through travels owned my one of my friends but this time we decided to take our own vehicle. So we had to plan everything - food,lodging and itenary. My friends and myself are not the best planners, but you get expertise only when you experience. Before we even got to getting the itenary done, a couple of my friends dropped out and another was close to jumping the ship. But thank God four us confirmed for the trip;Prajwal V,Sushil R S, Karthik V and myself were the lucky ones :)
Since we had only the weekend for sightseeing we couldn't see everything.

26th Saturday

5:00 am: Departed from Bengaluru
10:30 am:Arrived at Home Stay ,Madikeri. It takes less than 5 hours to Coorg from Bengaluru but we ran into some problems on the way.The Home stay we stayed in - Ram's Hill Top,Jodupal, Mangalore-Madikeri highway, 12kms from Madikeri Town.

I had never been to a home-stay before, so I was a little worried about it. But once I saw it I was very happy I agreed to a home-stay rather than a Lodge. You will have a secluded house all for yourself. There was Cook/server/maid who stayed nearby and served food when we wanted. We could reach him through a door bell. (No network coverage near our Home-stay, it was near the top of a hill).
12:00pm: Done with the Breakfast - Neer Dosa with Chutney. Left for TalaCauvery and Bhagamandalam.
3:30pm : Finished with Talacauvery and Bhagamandalam. Decided to skip lunch for Abbey Falls (I hope I won't repeat this mistake).
5:30pm : Saw the Abbey Falls. Worth the time but couldn't stop my stomach from grumbling.
6:30 pm: Back to Home Stay. End of first day proceedings :)
The view from the home-stay after it stopped raining.
8:30 pm :Camp Fire along with cool breeze really hit the right notes.

27th Sunday

Had a good sleep everyone got up really late - 9am
9:30am: My friend Prajwal and myself went for exploring the environment and we found ,to our astonishment, a small stream which later joined the river. Then went for what I suppose they call a Nature Walk.
10:30 am: Everyone were ready to roll. Departed the Home Stay
12:30 pm:Arrived at Nisarga Dhama. Strolled the place for a while, enjoyed the walk in the cold water until I lost my sunglasses :'(. Afterwards, went for a Boat Ride, my friends were too generous to let me paddle the boat ;) .
3:30 pm:Had Lunch at Hotel Caravan, Kushalnagar. Very nice hotel, good ambience and food also tastes good.
4:30 pm: Journey towards Bengaluru begins. We reached Mysore by 6:15 but the journey became very slow from here on. I was unaware of the fact that on a Sunday , Mysore- Bengaluru will have huge traffic.
9:00 pm: Reached Home safe and Sound :).

All in all this was one of the most fun-filled trip I had ever been. And I would love to go to Coorg again. From next time onwards I will not miss a chance to stay at a home-stay.

And the Winner is ....

2011-02-18T23:26:00.000+05:30

The Cricket World Cup is set to begin tomorrow in the Indian Sub-continent (yay!!). The thrill,tension and the smell of victory - all possible this world cup. There are no clear favorites this time. With the defending champions,Australia, already being proven beatable the tournament has just become more entertaining to say the least. So who has the best chance to win this world cup rather who are deserving to be the last four in the tournament?

India - Tipped as the "Favorites" to win the world cup this time around. After the last World Cup (Indian) disaster I can't seem to put them up as a definite finalists. They have the best batting line-up of all the teams. In fact they must make some batsmen rest in order to fit in some bowlers. I'll leave the team selection to the Indian cricket team :D. But what anyone seem to see is that History is against India. A cruel fact of a Cricket World Cup is that a host nation has never lifted the coveted trophy before.(Sri Lanka in 1996 is considered to be played in India). I think,of the last 4 world cups, India has the best chance to win the WC this time with a powerful batting line-up and tremendous fan support at Home. Also the entire team is motivated to win the World Cup for Sachin Tendulkar (they still think he will retire after this world cup).As they say records are meant to be broken. May India be Victorius.
South Africa - The "Chokers" are yet again one of the favorites to win the WC. They have a well balanced team. With batsmen like G Smith and Amla to start the proceedings,Duminy/Kallis to spice things up and Steyn to finish the remaining job ,it must indeed be a easy tournament for them. But huge trophies have always eluded them. Though they have performed very well in India against the Indians too nothing can be promised from them. But they can deliver if it is their day.
Sri Lanka - They are a team who perform like a team. Everyone of the playing eleven might not be a match winner but as a team they have played some good cricket against other teams. You cannot write-off these guys. They will also use the Home advantage. What they lack is consistent performance. Who knows they might clinch a thriller and repeat the 1996 feat.
Australia - yes they are beatable but they sure have some fighting spirit. Whenever they are pushed down they have the tendency to perform and prove their critics wrong. After the Ashes thrashing, everyone is bantering about Ponting and his men. If Ponting is looking for redemption then right now is the right time. With none of the stalwarts,from the last decade, who made them ~~look~~ invincibles ,ponting has a steep hill to climb if he has to win this one.

Whatever said you can never predict a world cup until the finish. Like before we can see Kenya (or someone else) in the semis but if everything goes according to the paper then the above 4 teams should have it easy against the rest. It is already reported that match and groups are designed to favor some specific teams. So I guess there might not be any surprises in the end. Every senior player will be definitely looking forward to finish their careers on a high. Everyone wants to Win the World Cup.

All my hopes ride on the Indian team. They have impressed everyone in the warm-up matches. Hope to see more of Helicopter shots,doosras, and the stunning Straight Drives(Sachin) . INDIA for the Win !!

You cannot play Football alone

2011-02-02T22:11:00.000+05:30

What do you do when you have no one to play football with and you are just 7 years old ? Call your parents ? really ? Or you can plan for future. Check the video for what i mean :)

You definitely need company to play Football. This kid learns it the hard way. But he(or atleast the ad creator) is smart enough to solve the problem. Remember Every Problem has a solution- you just gotta find it.

Mob Mentality

2011-01-19T19:53:00.001+05:30

The term “mob mentality” is used to refer to unique behavioral characteristics which emerge when people are in large groups.

The first time I came across this in text is in 10th standard when i read the play excerpt of Julius Cesar by Shakespeare. Caesar is killed by Brutus and et al, they are now conspiring to convince the Romans that Caesar was indeed the bad guy and had to be killed. At this point Antony enters.Seeing the body of Ceasar is shocked and now wants a chance to speak at the funeral of Caesar. Brutus accepts the humble request(BIG mistake Big guy) though Cassius puts in his concerns. After all Antony was going to speak after Brutus finishing his speech. Brutus was confident in swaying the people in his favor;he does it - with ease.

The scene starts with Brutus convincing the citizens about why Caesar must not live. Citizens agree completely with Brutus and they even praise him. But then comes Antony starts off with the epic lines -Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; Then spins the web of words which not only make the citizens against Brutus but they also start to praise Caesar for his greatness.
In a span of 30 min the minds of the citizens waver about the ideologies of Brutus and Antony. My ma'am then said Antony played with the "Mob Mentality" of the Romans thus etching Caesar as a great figure in their minds and defeating Brutus and co.
You can read the play here.

Nowadays too I see such "Mob Mentality" still. The main platforms where I notice an impact is Twitter and the electronic media. Twitter has this nice feature called 'Trending Topics' which shows the most tweeted words by the users. Most of the time it will be very useful ones - #goldenglobes ,#oscars, Sachin Tendulkar, etc... But sometimes Twitter is taken over by some small topic which is very irrelevant and most users don't care about it. Then why does it trend? Because there are too many people asking why it is trending ? I know it sounds stupid and people who are involved as dumb but it happens quite often these days. Though Trending Topics itself fuels the users to act like a 'Mob'. Just because it is on the trending topic more users tweet about it. I had this day when Maple Syrup was trending and I was clueless why would so many users think about something like that simultaneously. Just because some 16 year old ( viz Bieber) wants to have Maple syrup for breakfast it doesn't mean everyone should re-tweet it to show their support (come on everyone isn't eating maple syrup for breakfast!! ).
Such blind following also happens in India too often. There are some people who support organizations/ideologies because some-other person is also following it. (I am not talking about my friend Rohit ). Today Chandrababu naidu says "No Telangana" you shout a "Jai" for him day after he says "Jai for Telangana" again you shout a "Jai" for him. Isn't it time for us to stand for what we believe rather than rally behind so-called politicians.
The media (usually the television) also does this. I observe that for some cases the media gives a lot of (unwanted)attention. I really can't say whether it is intentional or not. We give too much importance to the TV channel reports too. When they have an expose about something then everyone point the finger at the accused and make him almost a criminal. No facts verified,no experts consulted, none. I can say about the Talwars in "Arushi" case. Even without the CBI filing the report "sources" told every news channel that the father was closest to become the criminal until they closed the case. Actually the Arushi's father was even the first to be arrested. At that time every on-looker was pretty convinced he was the killer but later he was released on lack of evidence.

This kind of judgement on our part is very wrong. We must wait on the facts, weigh the balance and then make a stand. It isn't very nice of you to make the fastest allegation on your opponent but making the right statement counts.

Capitalism II - The game

2011-01-02T02:01:00.001+05:30

About a year and a half ago I was in search of strategy- both RTS and turn based games. This was mainly due to my liking of games like Rise of Nations and Civilization IV. But I had enough military action through these games. I was now searching for a more peaceful (I mean no bullets and blood) but more enthralling game. I didn't really care about the graphics that the game presented because I had already played games like Age of Empires ,Wolfenstein ,Doom -Though these games lacked the visual edge, they had the content to make us play these games time and again. Some Google searches and I am introduced this new game - Capitalism II. The first comments on this looked like "The second part way better than the first one". I never plan to play the first part but it was comforting that this was a second installment of the game so I did expect it to be fun. Moreover this game belonged to a different genre- business. Never really played a business game other than Monopoly. So I grabbed this game.
When I installed the game I told myself this does not have rich visuals. This also brought smiles to my face because my system could run this game without any problems. The introduction video also showed some promise , it was going to be totally about business. The game puts you as the Head of a company. You take all the decisions. You have to build the shops to sell, factories to manufacture and research centers to discover new products. You also get to deal with financial activities of the company like stock options and loans with banks. There is both single-player as well as multi-player. Single-player mode has the campaign mode in which you are given some specific scenarios to complete. You can also start a game with your own scenario. You are engaged in the company activities completely. The best part is the variations you can implement and experience. You can build from a car to a camera, rare sheep and sell leather or sell a silicon chip or the entire computer system itself.

I liked the games idea. I started playing ,but as usual,very early I was totally involved in winning the game (be better than your competitor in the market). Initially it was so difficult for me to really stay up to the computer AI but I learnt the trade pretty quickly. I usually manufacture and sell the items which have more profit margin and try to make more money out of the apartments. I also like to control the manufacture to the root hence will have factories to build from the scratch rather than depend upon the Seaport and other suppliers.

If you want to play a game which is of strategy genre with a difference then this game is worth a try.

We are 11!

2010-12-26T20:15:00.000+05:30

I am in no way referring to my age , I was just quoting the tagline of this year's EA Sports FIFA installment- FIFA 11.This is not a review of this wonderful game but my experience with it. I have been playing EA Sports FIFA from 2004 edition , but only on PC. This year i decided to buy it for Playstation. At the time I bought this game I knew only little what you could with this game. There was career mode where you can play as manager or a player or both and you could play online with other gamers. These two reasons were enough to make me spend INR 2500 on this game. But nowadays i don't really play both the modes mentioned much. Well what I discovered was that there is a cool additions to the different modes - Play as a single player in a 11v11 match online. I created my Pro (my player - Jayadeep aka JD aka Chica :D ) and i was off to play as a midfielder. Thanks to BSNL internet connection I dont have such a nice online experience.

So back in November I started the game and I wanted to finish of my first season with Manchester United. But there was some update to the game ; updated it (took 20min :/ - bad internet bandwidth). I thought it was a usual squad update but found a new option called - Ultimate Team(FUT). Of course I clicked it it askedfor few details about "My Club". I had no clue I would be playing FUT more than the career mode.
Well FUT mode is more like building a club by acquiring better players for your club. You get coins after you finish each match. There is a Store from where you can buy packs containing players and others extras. There is also a trading system to sell /buy players and extras. I have been playing this mode from November but in bits because I had academic work and exams to deal with and I have managed to build a club with decent players. In the beginning I was a little new to this so made some bad decisions but mow I am pretty sure of what I am doing . So Check out my FUT team here (before the link expires).

I am actually trying to build a FUT with the following players- Forwards-Wayne Rooney,David Villa, Midfielders-Messi, Xavi,Iniesta, ,Defenders-Evra,Puyol,Pique, Sergio Ramos. Goal Keeper-Casillas

The team is thought not based on my favorite players but based on need for high team chemistry. My style of play requires lot of team chemistry. As you see this more like a Spanish/Barcelona Team :D . I do have a EPL based team but I cant seem to find the players with high ratings.

I like playing down the wings, defensive and counter attack is my best weapon. With the new Phyisical play by defenders I really feel hard to score from the centre. I play best with 4-4-2 formation but dont shy away from a better default formation. My favourite team is Manchester United with Berbatov and Rooney to score from the deadly crosses from Nani and Valencia. I also like the Barcelona FC because their formation(4-3-3) is so set for crossing but with only one guy waiting in the box.

By the way , If you wonder why the tagline is "We Are 11" - it is not because it is FIFA 2011 :D - Now you can play as the Goal Keeper watching the computer playing as you teammates :).

Toys!!

2010-12-17T12:15:00.001+05:30

Well who doesnt like toys ? My latest liked toy is the push back toy car from Mcdonalds :D .Yup! i got it along with the Happy Meal. The exterior of the car is very bad ;looks like a overly used toy car. The colour is not attractive and the car never gives a feel of Batman but it did come as "Batman Toy" :o .
As you can see from the description above i was not so excited to fix the parts of the car. But come on it was a toy and moreover i was bored studying for my exams. So I put the car together pulled it back , released, the car moved......*wow what happened * ..... .After the car came to a halt i just couldn't stop myself from 'playing' with the toy for some more time!
Wanna see this toy car in action ? watch the video below !

Goodnight puny human!

2010-11-07T22:53:00.001+05:30

If you are into English TV sitcoms like myself then you would have surely come across the geeky "The Big Bang Theory". For the starters, it is a sitcoms based on the lives of 4 friends-Leonard ,Sheldon ,Howard ,Raj and their hot and sexy neighbor Penny. It is a all out comedy series with lot of science facts. The basic plot is all are nerds except Penny, who hasn't attened even college and works as a waitress in The CheeseCake Factory. Leonard, an experimental physicist, wants a girlfriend like a normal human being but can't find one because of his 'geekness'. Sheldon, holds a PhD, is the ultra nerd who thinks he is the most intelligent human being alive (once he wonders whether is an alien among the lesser-intel humans :P ).Sheldon has some rules and when he makes a rule it means all of mankind must follow it whether it be regarding a couch or a time machine. Next, Howard,an aerospace engineer is a big flirt who tries to woo every girl whom he sees and everytime Howard is desparate to find a girl. Lastly Raj, he is Indian :) and a particle astrophysicist who becomes dumb in front of girls in absence of alcohol !!

Comedy ensues when Sheldon starts to use the technical bumbo-jumbo in the everyday life. With Penny clueless about science, video games, comics and computers and rest always interested in these "Fun" things ,the scenes bring smiles to your face.

Things I like in the series(not in order)Sheldons Epic phrase -"Thats my place!!".
Howard's pick up lines.
Leonard trying to woo Penny by trying to rough her Ex.
Sheldon's Dream about Sheldonopolis (while doing yoga with Raj).
The history episode where it all began .
How dumb Penny looks when having a conversation with Sheldon and Leonard.
Conversation between Howard and his mother.
Bazinga pranks :D
Soft Kitty Hard kitty
and many more.

My favourite character is Sheldon mainly for his "reasonable" actions and decisions. The way he speaks is so different from any character seen on TV. By the way Jim Parsons playing as Sheldon won the Emmy 2010 in the 'Lead Actor' Category. You can watch the video here.

I love this sitcom a lot. This is the one sitcom which makes me laugh more than FRIENDS. The first thing i do when a episode goes on air is to watch the episode online at CBS or get it through my friends :D.
Watch this series if you want to laugh your guts out :).
Oh,do u want to know more about the title of the blog post? Then watch the video here.

Google Chrome and Microsoft Bing!!!!

2010-10-24T23:29:00.015+05:30

Lets get our history right!!

Microsoft is the company which develops operating systems for personal computers from 1981. However in the 1990's something awesome happened to PC's , that was Internet!! It was so awesome that every customer started buying PC's just to use internet. Microsoft was more than happy to sell more of their products-mainly Windows and Office-on these PCs.

However as the number of Internet users increased the content on the internet also increased. Now everyone needed a tool to find what they wanted more quickly and accurately. Here comes the "Do-No-Evil" Google. Basically, google is a web search engine which searches the internet for what you queried. As the content grew, Google 'crawled' the web more and found results more quickly and Google too grew with time.

There were a lot of search engines before Google but none of them were better in searching millions (now billions) of web pages within seconds accurately to find what you want. One such 'other' search engine was 'MSN search' by Microsoft. But sadly it was very bad. Also some users went with other options like Yahoo , AOL etc... and all of these had one thing in common , that was, Google was better than them :P .

So, come 2005 Microsoft realized that they need a search engine which can compete with Google, hence they start developing a new search engine called 'Live Search' which eventually is re-released as 'Bing' in 2009. Now to the point why do Microsoft need Bing? Cant they tell everyone to use Google. Now there is a problem with that.

Now consider this scenario - One day Google gets very angry at Microsoft for some reason and decides to do something Evil. They decide to not allow people to search from Windows platform!! I know this is really evil of Google. But say if they allow Mac and Linux users to search but not Windows. Yes, Google will be losing a lot of market-share to its competitors but at the same time Microsoft will be losing its already slipping PC market-share.This is so unacceptable for Microsoft. So Microsoft put their own search engine product Microsoft Bing!

Though Bing was introduced with so much expectations it didn't deliver as expected . In short it was not a 'Google-Killer'. But it was not that bad either. Bing found a lot of fans (bing accounts 10% of searches). But this was more than what Microsoft signed on for. They wanted an alternative for Google and they got it. But as we say it wasn't a Google-Killer. The market-share of Bing is the lost market-share of other search-engines like Yahoo!.

Google too isn't an all happy enterprise! It has its fears. It also fears of Microsoft becoming Evil . Google as a search-engine company has built itself a huge Kingdom on the Internet. Now that can be pretty dangerous. Just imagine the plight of Google when ,say, the internet is down for a month (i said imagine, remember). Or, say users cant access Google's site because Internet Explorer crashes(something familiar huh? :P ) whenever the address bar reads anything Google . Now when we look at the statistics we see IE holds a large but decreasing market-share of nearly 70% browser market. If this ever happens then 70% of the world wont be using Google anymore which means 70% less money Google makes. Of course this is most horrible for Google. So what they do is develop their own web browser- Google Chrome!

Chrome was released with very simple interface, no cluttering, no crashes, faster searches and open-source. Chrome was an hit among browsers. Google stuck to their basic formula - do everything a little faster and simpler. Chrome starting gaining browser market-share steadily eating away the pie of IE.

Microsoft brought Bing against Google and it failed.But Microsoft understood that the Internet-search market cannot be underestimated once again. Hence it has partnered Yahoo! in order to fight the Giant G.

However Google Chrome is used by Google to emphasize the fact of openness and the use of better technologies on web like HTML 5.

Are YOU ready to Move?

2010-10-23T22:06:00.003+05:30

For a long time video game consoles have been a important form of entertainment. The first home video game console was released as early as 1972 named Magnavox . From 1972 till date there has been constant improvement in this field pushing the recently released consoles to the Seventh Generation!!. The first of these consoles was XBOX 360 ,released in 2005. A year later Sony rivaled the XBox 360 with their Playstation 3. These two consoles actually was direct challenge to the game developers to publish games with better graphics, game-play and games with longer game time.

Amidst the release of these two HD-consoles there was the release of a console whose approach to games was very different. Nintendo entered back into the video game console market with the introduction of WII .Wii was very different from PS3 and XBox360. Wii uses a controller which looks like TV remote and the gamer uses the remote, to control the character, which is sensed using IR sensing Sensor Bar. This changed the thought of "how to game'' and simultaneosy brought in a lot of new customers into the gaming. Now gaming was no more just-for-recreation. It became way of exercising, doing your daily Yoga and many more. You didnt need a ThreadMill to show you how many calories you lost. All you wanted a Wii.

At first Sony and Microsoft snubbed aside Wii since Wii didn't play games as-they-knew-it. But sales of Wii surprised everyone. And Wii currently holds the record for the Most Consoles sold in a single month in the US.

Motion sensing gaming has picked up so much frenzy that both Microsoft and Sony have released their own alternatives to Wii -XBox Kinect and Playstation Move. The PS Move is just like a Wiimote, comes as a addon to the existing PS3 console. Move has a glowing Orb which is sensed by the PS Eye camera .Sony already has a long list of HD games supporting this new addon. This is real direct competition for the Wii , actually the Wii is on the back foot now. Bad online experience and not so many 'games' on the Wii have given a little edge to Playstation Move which already has a well established PS Network and a long list of HD games to be 'Moved'

On the other hand Microsoft have gone a step ahead. They have removed the Controller itself :) .Your "Body" is the new controller. There is a console , a Display (HD is good :) ) and there is you!!. How do they do this? They use a sensing device similar to the Sensing Bar of Wii. The sensing device basically maps different but many body-points to recreate the 3D image of the gamer to pinpoint the exact position of the player. So as you move body the character on the screen moves. Sounds fascinating doesn't it ? With the popular XBox Live ,Kinect also has social advantages. You can video chat with another Xbox Live subscriber or your friends using MSN video chat. The camera on sensing device is pretty cool as it changes its position(to a limit) as the user moves in front of it. Kinect too has a 19 games already compatible with it.

Now, we have 3 consoles fighting for supremacy. Nintendo already know the motion sensing gaming well while Sony and Microsoft are yet to completely dive into moption gaming. But everyone agrees that Motion is going to be the battle field for the next year or so.

So Are you ready to Move ?

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