The Unified Blog of Everything

Random Trivia from a Train journey

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:19:00 +0000

If bottled water costs Rs 2/-, its probably just a misprint.
There is a spoon. It comes in a yellow packet.
There's extra sugar as well, even if you don't dislike it.
Omelette and Butter on Brown Bread is not as delicious as it sounds.
Lazard pays you BIG money, big enough to save. (and Yes, there really is a company by that name)
Rave was the first mall in Uttar Pradesh.. and that makes Kanpur an awesome city.
Padmaasan on a Chair Car seat isn't all that difficult.
Every chocolate with nuts isn't Crackle.
Names sound funnier with the 'ch' sound.
I'm a good observer (blush)
Not everybody is scared of geeks.

Confidence

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:37:00 +0000

On the twenty sixth of August, 2009, during the recession-hit placement season at BITS, a seven point something electronics and electrical engineer appeared for his first placement interview with HP.. In an Adobe T-shirt and cargoes.

"Why do you want to work for HP?"
"I have to put food on the table."

Two months at Google Summer of Code is what gives one balls that firm.

Respect!

An Unfortunate Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Life in Bhagirath Village

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:53:00 +0000

Its been ten days, and life in Bhagirath village is as laid back as that of a Navy officer after spending six months at sea. It seems like yet another peaceful and uneventful desert town on the outside. Take a closer look at the mess-side (not mess-facing) upper pi wing, however, and you will notice that it isn't all smoke and green after all.

To start with, my namesake and (ex-)wingie Vineet Pandey, who is now a Backlog student, is back on campus. To make things worse, he has been alotted a room next to that of his nemesis. You may think that that is the cruelest joke the random nature of the Universe can play at you until you visit Room no. 258 in Bhagirath, where Rachit Chandra is living next to Nobody.

Cornered on the other side of the wing, Anurag Dutta has been made to study Bode Plots for another four months after a high-tech 'Pen Check Test' conducted by one of the thousand Deans in the highly dysfunctional bureaucratic system of BITS proved him guilty of adding a leading '1' to a requisition letter.

King of DoTA Vishal Vejani, who has made up his mind to set up an empire of Imitation Jewellery, has been fighting hard to gain access to the Temple of Zuma with SunGod priviliges.

In other news, chocolate boy Kunal Batra, who has successfully evaded more than seventy proposals from ovulating BITSian women in the past three years, has finally come out of the closet and publically announced his sexual preference on his GTalk status message.

Also easily noticable (in fact, impossible to miss even on Google Earth) is Binit Ranjan Mishra, who has been alotted the middle room to maintain the centre of gravity within the wing (and also to keep the moon within the Earth's gravitational field). He has put up a curtain in his room as well, to protect his precious and delicate body from the perverted eyes of the three people who will bother to check out what he's upto in the next five months.

While Golden Boot of BITS Sathe Akshay Rajendraprasad and Nine Point Something Mohta Mayank Prakash have been struggling with the name fields on their resume, Rashik Gupta has been receiving fragments of romantic poetry from his secret crush.

Stargazer Amey Parulekar and my favourite gult in the whole world Karteek Addanki, as usual, are Geeks.

With upto six hours of powercuts, an erratic water supply and a disastrous LAN distribution switch, Bhagirath Village has become alarmingly similar to BITS Goa.

Thankfully, Swine Flu hasn't created as much of a havoc so far, but the aptly named Little Green Mofos have ruined Vishal Jaiswal's plans of jerking off with the lights on.

As for Yours truly, Divya Saraf agreed to tie him a rakhi after 'The Dude from Lucknow' Swati Singh, for reasons undisclosed, blatantly refused to do so, causing a minor glitch in her neonatal relationship with a particular StuCCAn of a department that thinks it controls(z) everything.

As the moment of arrival of Dhananjai Gaur, Anant Prakash and Yahoo! Software draws nearer, and as Ayush Saksena, Shailee Jain and Surbhi Chowdhary continue to struggle with the wires and holes on their breadboards, Senti sem at BITS promises to be a 100 day long tale of Intellectual Conversations, Critical Decisions and Situation Comedy.

Here's to Retirement!

By weight

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:21:00 +0000

Yes, XKCD has inspired everybody.

Statues, Dalits and Mayawati - The other side

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:45:00 +0000

The statues in Lucknow are all over the news these days. I, like everyone else, have condemned the expenditure of crores of rupees on these in the past. However, I'd like to posit some thoughts from the other side of the argument here.

On being asked the reason for building these statues, Mayawati said: "Why doesn't anyone raise a finger at the memorials at Rajghat where the land itself would be worth crores of rupees?"

And right she is.

People criticize Mayawati for building statues at the expense of development. If you give it some thought, the total amount spent on Gandhi-Nehru statues and memorials across the country is far greater than what Mayawati has spent on memorials for Dalit leaders in Lucknow.. and to add to that, all that money was spent when the country was less developed and much poorer. Development must have taken a greater hit back then than it is taking now.

We have grown up in a post-liberalization developing and progressive India, and have never experienced the underdeveloped nation with a downright hypocritic society that we used to be; we've only heard of it.

Starting right from our primary school text books, we have been Gandhi-washed; we've been made to believe that Mahatma Gandhi is the only national leader worth praise and that the Congress alone got us independence.

There is a plethora of unsung heroes who were sidelined by the dominantly Congress government we had till the 90s.

As an example, all of us had read about Bhagat Singh in school, but how many of us appreciated his life, his work and his sacrifice before watching a movie on him? Would you mind if somebody erected a statue of him today? Of course not!

Has anyone bothered to read about all the work done by Dr. Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram for the upliftment of the underdeveloped before criticizing their statues?

Scheduled Castes have always been mistreated, subdued and ignored. Their leaders have never been given the respect they deserve, except by the Dalits themselves, who have always been, rather have been kept, at the bottom of the development ladder.

If Mayawati, a dalit who is at the top of the ladder today, is making it up to them by honouring their leaders, shouldn't we be supportive?

For my part, I respect the woman for what she has accomplished inspite of belonging to both the caste and the gender looked down upon by rest of the society.

In merely twenty years, BSP has risen from nothing to holding an absolute majority in the most populous state of the country, an achievement attributed to the work done by them for the Dalits.

From a more psychological point of view, we have the habit of judging people, specially women, only by their looks. We have branded Lalu Prasad Yadav, who holds a bachelor's degree in law, as 'illiterate', evaluating him only by his bucolic looks and accent.

Similarly, most of us have subconsciously hated Mayawati ever since the day we've seen her on a poster, not because of her work or her policies, but because she is, excuse me, an unattractive woman. In our mentality, this by default means uncouth, untalented and evil. We have simply ignored her capabilities, her educational qualification and the struggle she has faced in life as a dalit woman.

Lastly, stop criticizing her for focussing more of her work on Dalits. Their support and their votes have got her this far. It's her duty, like it is for all other leaders, to work for them and keep them satisfied.

And yes, Mayawati is a 'goddess' to that part of society.

If I was a dalit and somebody finally paid attention to my people's development and my caste's leaders after they've been despised for over fifty years of independence, I'd consider her a goddess too.

Cynical Cyanide

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:13:00 +0000

"I have been repeatedly told not to use my blog as a medium of communication. However, I can't resist the temptation at times.

I lack the skill of articulation. Today, PP managed to articulate the problem in humor prevalent in our circles. Most of our humor revolves around criticizing others.

We love being cynics. Identifying things that do not work. Making fun of people's munjis. Talking of change. Conjuring up visions. Hiding behind excuses. I am happy about slowly shedding off the cynic's glasses which shroud your eyes. Now I am a lot more positive.

And as a result, I stay away from the cynics. They are injurious to my spirits."

We love criticizing others to hide our own shortcomings.

We contrive faults in them, find excuses to mock them, conceal our hypocrisy as tafri.

We feed on their misery to make ourselves feel better.

If sitting in a group and speaking foul about those not present is what having "fun" in Social circles is all about, I despise You.

Sarcasm is good, but it breeds Cynicism.

I am glad I can see things positively again.

Thank You Prakhar Prabhakar, Rachit Chandra.

The Saksena Limit

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:47:00 +0000

This just in:

Scientists at Xero0ne Labs have finally calculated a criteria for evaluating human behavior.

The theorem, named after its founder Ayush Saksena (BE MSc), classifies all humorous or attempted-humorous actions into two categories:

Tafri
Chutiyaap

According to the theorem, above a certain limit, all so called nautanki ceases to be Tafri and becomes Chutiyaap. This limit, derived empirically through repeated experimentation on the Maturity Levels of test subjects from the Despo Doodh group, has been named 'The Saksena Limit' in honor of the founder of the theorem.

However, The Saksena Limit is highly stochastic.

It depends on factors such as:

Whether or not the joke is cracked by Ayush Saksena
Whether or not the joke is on Ayush Saksena
Whether or not a girl Ayush Saksena could have slept with would change her mind because of the joke

The current value of The Saksena Limit has been estimated at 0.8 NPM.

Also, when we examine the graph of the derivative of the function, we can notice that there is a steep change in the function near the Saksena Limit, which indicates that a joke intended as Tafri can easily turn into Chutiyaap, if the almighty Saksena so decides.

Thus, we can also conclude that "There is a thin line between Tafri and Chutiyaap."

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Kumari Sushri Mayawati Ji has announced a prize of rupees 1 lakh and four marble statues for the founder scientist Ayush Saksena for this remarkable discovery.

About Last Night

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Top ten reasons why last night was awkward:

Ayush Saksena wore a sparkling gray shirt.
Arjun Krishna took a fifty minute walk on a dark lonely road with another guy.
Ayush Saksena displayed paedophilic tendencies.
Arjun Krishna pee'd on the LMGC gate.
Ayush Saksena was sexually assaulted by two men.
Arjun Krishna flirted with another guy in his mother's presence.
Ayush Saksena shamelessly described how he takes care of his pubic hair.
Arjun Krishna slept with a soft toy.
Ayush Saksena had a one hour long romantic conversation at One in the night with his "cousin".
Neither of them was under the influence.

Respect the Red

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:52:00 +0000

Note : This article is about the color red on Gtalk status messages.

If you are a Manchester United fan, you were probably looking for this.

If you are a communist desperate for respect, go here.

अगर आपकी मंगल की महादशा चल रही है तो कृपया यहाँ जाएँ.

End of Note

Good looking people will never stop ruining my happiness.

This time, they've made a mockery of my privacy.

Here's how it happened.

In this world, there are good looking girls. (A)

Also in this world, there are desperate men. (B)

And in any closed system, B's purpose of existence is to stalk A.

In the beginning there was A.

And one day, Google made Gtalk.

A logged onto Gtalk. She was green.

And for a time, it was good.

But soon, Bs found her out, and the next time she logged in, she had a hundred "hi wassup?" messages from Bs.

She had a little conversation with all the Bs, and politely made an excuse to shoo them away. It is, after all, the moral responsibility of every good looking girl in the world to be nice to people to prevent unnecessary testostoronal loss of life.

The Bs didn't understand; they were rather encouraged; they didn't give up.

When A had had enough, she turned red.

And a wise move it was.

Half the Bs thought A was busy and stopped buzzing,

And there came a time when A was always red.

Obscurity had come to the rescue.

Soon, Red became the new Green.

The other Bs, however, got the trick.

How dare she take away their right to harass pretty girls!

How dare she try to outsmart them to be just left alone!

Busy or not, their "hey how r u?" continued.

And so started the race..

And in the quest of staying one step ahead of her stalkers, A used Pidgin and turned yellow.

And Bs responded with their timed 5-minute-ly "hey u thr?"s

And A had to eventually give in every time.

And then one day, A turned invisible.

And then, there was relief.

She could finally hit on her chocolate boys in peace.

And how did all this effect me, the common man?

Well, I'm old fashioned.

Being an ugly person I'm not allowed to keep up with these trends.

I still believe in the orthodox teachings of Google: the three Colors,

When I'm busy I innocently set my status to Red.

But people just ignore it and buzz me anyway.

I write DND next to the red,

And some continue to ignore it and buzz me anyway.

I take the effort to remove the abbreviation and make it Do not Disturb. Busy means Busy.

And somehow, Vineet Pandey still manages to buzz me anyway.

Now, either Vineet Pandey is an atrocious disgrace to comprehending the English language or,

In time, the common man has just got used to the mockery of colors done by good looking people.

It is, I believe, the latter.

Today, it doesn't matter what color your status is.

If you're on the list, you'll be bugged.

Good looking people have screwed us up once again.

And this, we believe, is blasphemy and must come to an end, lest we anger the lords.

However, something good has come out of it as well.

Good looking girls, in doing so, have provided us a foolproof way of finding out how good-looking any girl is.. from only her Gtalk status.

Its quite simple to figure out as well.

In every status, the girl says a story.

I'm fat, ugly and desperate.

Or, I'm lonely and vulnerable.

I have a stalker.

Or, I'm just an ugly friend of a hot one.

I'm popular and attractive.

Or, I'm just asleep.

I'm Hot.

And, I'm actually busy hitting on someone else right now.

Payscale Puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Its time for placements, and owing to the lack of interest of software companies in copied-from-Google Computer Engineers, there are going to be a lot of tradeoffs between Dream Jobs, High Payscales, Good Companies and Higher Studies this year.

Its too time-consuming to develop a rational scale for analyzing all the parameters, and therefore, I have decided to go for a much basic criteria.

Since I should fit into almost any CompSci job under the sun (I don't have a CGPA to boast), I'll be satisfied with my placement if:

After all expenses, at the end of a hard day's work I can afford to buy a KFC bucket.

End of criteria

Psenti Sem Bucket List

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:55:00 +0000

As the last semester of your BITSian life approaches, you think of the sophisticated and gentlemanly college life you've had so far, and plan out..

Ten stupid and immature things to do before passing out from BITS:

Drop a course.
Make a BITSian sister.
Appear for an evaluative component under the influence.
Vote for None of the Above.
Get a fake test make-up.
Go onstage for a major quiz.
Ask a girl out just because its Valentine's Day.
Host a DC++ hub and fight for its superiority.
Create hissing sounds in the LTC to disturb the class.
Jerk off in IPC.

Current score : 3/10

Say No to Tata Nano

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:46:00 +0000

The People's Car, Tata Nano, has been the headline of the Indian automotive industry for the past two years. Being the cheapest car under production, it targets the lower middle class population that till last year could not afford to buy an expensive car and had to settle for the two decade old Maruti 800.

All set to roll on Indian roads now, the Tata Nano is widely seen as a good thing.

Having been built completely indigenously, it is considered a statement of India's economic growth and innovation. People have immense faith in the car and well, everybody just loves it.

In fact, everybody loves the idea of a 1-lakh car so much that they have overlooked the car's specifications almost completely.

What we have is a 625cc rear-mounted engine. Sounds good? The Maruti 800 is the weakest car on the road and it is 800cc. How much power do you think a 600-odd cc engine will generate?

How about a maximum speed of 80 kmph? This means that after hitting the gas for a long time on a highway you can get to 80. Somewhat auto-rickshawish, isn't it?

How many of us really want to drive such a car everyday?

I'm no automotive engineer, so I'll stop here, but you should get the idea that the car is only meant for those who absolutely cannot afford anything else.

It worries me how people have overlooked this and have booked the car out of pure excitement.

My grandfather booked one. My father almost booked one too. My brother also gave it a thought.

If it wasn't for some sensible decision-making, we could have had three Tata Nanos in the family in the next six months (It is so affordable!). We already have two cars.

The same applies for a lot of people I know.

So what happens once all these Nanos are bought into every second family?

People will be excited about the car, drive their Nano for like a week or so, maybe a month, realize how much of a car it really is and park it in the garage, and it won't come out of there till when their 12 year old son would need a driving lesson.

At much less than 1 lakh rupees, the car won't even have a re-sale value good enough!

By booking the Nano this way, not only are people wasting a lakh rupees, they are denying that poor man a unit who has waited for two years to buy the car and actually needs it.

If people with no need to buy the car continue to do so, we will soon see as many useless Tata Nanos in garages in the next two years as we have useless mobile phones in homes today.

Not a good sign, is it?

Okay, economic perspective done, lets float another idea here.

Since the day the Nano was announced, it has been loved and praised by everyone.

Have you ever heard anyone speak anything negative about it? Leave the AutoCar magazine aside, they are professionals. Anyone from the common man?

I haven't.

People are so swept away by the hype created by the car and have so much faith in the product that they are ready to trust Tata Motors on anything. Do you realize how much power it gives to the company?

How many people expect Tata to give them the miracle of a car they've dreamed of? How many people have paid their hard earned money to book the car? How many of them are lower middle class people struggling to make ends meet?

The Nano was initially announced at 1 lakh. It has finally come out at 1.30 lakh.

In one small price hike Tata Motors may have devastated the hopes, the dreams and the economic plans of thousands of middle class families.

What if they have to make another change? Do you realize how big an impact one changed feature in the car can have?

Should anyone or anything be allowed to have so much power?

The Sprite of Hypocrisy

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:14:00 +0000

From the time it entered the market, Sprite has had one publicity tactic.

Remember the first mockery involving a sardar and a car (rather "the-car") ?

"Cold drink peene se heroin-sheroin nahi aati. Aati hai.. Dakaar!"

It was probably the first softdrink ad in the market that didn't target the "I to do what celebrity do" mentality of the public.

"Sprite bujhaaye only pyaas. Baaki all bakwaas."

It was simple.

And it created an impact.

Who doesn't remember the sarcasm in the ad mocking Mountain Dew's adventure theme?

"Aaaayee wanna dew!"

How about letting the people know how irrelevant filmstars and cricketers flying kites is to softdrinks?

"Public ki le rahe hain."

A mockery of the popular wannabe English culture?

"Tommy, Uncle ke liye pen laao."

Sania Mirza's presence in the later ads added attitude to the viewpoint.

In the quest of sales, Sprite's advertisement campaign did much more that just sell its softdrink - It created awareness. It taught people to judge a product based on its usefulness rather than on the celebrities shown on TV using it.

Of course, Sprite tasted like distilled water mixed with soda all along, but that hardly seemed to matter.

To most of us, Sprite always represented a culture - The culture of being sensible; the culture of thinking rationally; the culture of not being a part of the herd.

It used to represent the culture, that is.

This ad just spoils all the hard work.

"Sprite kholega toh milega. Cap ke neeche run banao, ShahRukh aur KnightRiders se milne ka mauka paao."

I don't know if the hypocrisy by Sprite was noticed by people.

It seems that back at work they have finally realized that unrealistic dreams are better motivators than sensible advice. Someone dared to think ahead of his time again. As always, he was unsuccessful.

I won't be surprised to know that Sprite sales skyrocketed during the IPL.

Tiles

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Another long holiday

Another intellectual conversation

Another week of introspection

Another wave of realizations

Another burst of laughter

Another silent resolution

A thousand thoughts

A hundred ideas

A couple of conversations

One decision

And an ambiguous blogpost to sum it all up

Vacations do something to you.

For moody bloggers like yours truly, they provide an excuse to write.

Boss

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:08:00 +0000

About a week back, a new member moved to the WING.

Andy and co were in sky lawns when they saw a bunch of dogs attack a puppy. They rescued him. He was wounded - bleeding from his neck and from under one of his forelimbs. His hindlimbs were damaged to the extent that he couldn't walk. He was terrified by the attack, and his mother was nowhere to be found.

I do not know what the exact situation was, but in a moment of pity and compassion they decided to save him from his miserable condition. They kept him in somebody's room and moved him to the WING three days later.

When I first saw him, he was unable to walk. He could hardly move, effortfully dragging his body to another place every now and then. It was quite clear that he was in pain. Even the trivial natural activities seemed to be difficult.

We did a pretty good job taking care of him. Everyday, one of us brought him a pack of Tiger biscuits. We took him to the local vet as well, and got the prescribed painkillers and antibiotics. We did all that we could and yet, none of us could live up to the parenting a puppy in that condition required. After all, we were just a bunch of single fathers. For reasons undisclosed, we decided to name him Boss.

Boss stayed in Andy's room for about four days. Andy, I must say, has a lot of patience. Taking care of an injured infant dog is no walk in the park. To start with, he leads quite a busy life, hardly staying more than twelve hours a day in his room. The responsibilities of owning a pet, and that too a physically disabled one, to add to it, and the persistent smell of droppings in the room pushed his patience to the limit.

When Andy had to leave for Delhi four days later, we relocated him to my room. Now, I have a thing for dogs. I have had the experience of bringing one up at home and I knew that adopting a pet is much more than just taking care of it. The moment emotions and attachment come into the picture, things change.

He stayed in my room for a day, making it a point to stay as close to me as possible. He moaned rather unnoticably whenever I left the room, and crawled close to me and slowly licked my feet as a token of affection when I came back. Based on what I was doing, he'd sleep under the computer table or beside the bed.

Early next morning, I woke up to his barking. He was sitting innocently right under my head staring me, waiting for me to open the door for him so that he could go do his business outside. Andy seems to have done a good job in potty training.

Though I tried my best to stay clear of developing an attachment to him, it was inevitable, for the simple reason that a child demands affection, and though some people can ignore it, I couldn't help but pet him when he crawled upto me and sat next to my feet, rubbing his fur against the warmth of my skin.

That evening, we had to return him to where he belonged.

Two reasons.

Firstly, he had started walking again, which meant he could survive with his family.

Secondly, due to unforseen circumstances, we could no longer keep him in the WING and not get into trouble.

Trikha and I took him back to sky, and as we approached the gate one of the bitches on the other side walked upto us and stood there staring at him longingly - His mother, we presumed.

This moment itself was beautiful. I was holding him up in my arms, and the mother was a good distance away. She somehow sensed his presence and came to him. I'm pretty sure she couldn't even make him out visually where he was, but she was sure it was him.

I did not know how she would react on seeing him after such a long time, I knew birds abandon their children if someone else touches them. I decided to hand over the proceedings to them, and put him down between the two of us, while staying ready to reverse the action if for some reason she showed aggression.

To my surprise, he didn't even bother to look at her. The moment I put him down and backed off a step or two, he walked upto me and curled around my feet, as if he was begging me not to leave him. I don't know if he recognized his mother, but judging from her ability to make him out from such a distance, I think he knew.

It was his choice, and he chose to come to me.

Moment of irony. Extreme irony.

I wasn't ready for this. For the first time, I felt helpless. I could no longer keep him with me, and his mother had walked away in disappointment. Neeraj was with me, and his plan of action didn't cover this either.

We started walking away from him, hoping he'd go back to her.

He didn't. Instead, he followed us, trying to match our pace with whatever energy remained in his crippled legs. There was only so much crying we could take before we stopped and waited for him to come upto us. Once again, he curled himself around my feet, this time pressing himself even tighter onto my shoes.

We were now in sky lawns, and there were a few more puppies around. We were hoping he would be able to bond with them. Some of them came close, smelt him and walked away. Neeraj and I stood there indecisively for almost five minutes - A strange dilemma.

We could either leave him there, where he'd be alone, abandoned by his mother, where the same pack of dogs could attack him again, where no one else would feed him, or take care of his crippled leg, or just show him affection.

On the other hand, we could take him with us, keep him in the WING, risk him being discovered by the now suspicious sweeper and left alone on the road, where he was sure to die. To add to it, I was going to be alone in the WING for the next few days. It was the holiday season, and everyone else had a happy family to go back home and enjoy the festival with.

It was my call, and I decided to leave him there and let nature work its own way upon his fate.

I returned to sky the next day to check on him. I couldn't find him.

Today, I got news.

He died.

If it was just another dog on the street I wouldn't have cared. Death and suffering are a part of nature. It would have been nothing unusual.

In this case, however, things were different. I was, in part, responsible for his death. I was undoubtably his last memory of a parental figure, the one who abandobned him.

I can try my best to convince myself its a part of everyday life and isn't something worth giving a thought, but I know it isn't.

If it was me in sky that unfortunate day, I wouldn't have brought him back with me in the first place.

Though I hadn't chosen to take up his responsibilty, I chose to give it up.

I've briefly seen him in my dreams the last two nights, where he is happily living with his mother again. I know it won't be the same dream tonight.

One should never take up a responsibility he cannot fullfil. No matter how promising the immediate consequences seem, in the long run they will harm someone, either him or the dependents.

Andy and co did a very compassionate thing by rescuing an injured puppy and taking care of him the other day, but what they gave him in doing so was love, a feeling of belongingness and hope - the hope of staying alive.

What they should have done was leave him there and let nature work in its own way.

Maybe then, his death would have been much less painful.

There are things in life that just cannot be described in words.

The world is beautiful. Learn to accept it.

Fashion and Football

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered why so many football players date supermodels?

Look around you. There are uncountable examples.

So what is it about footballers that women in the world of fashion cannot resist?

At Xero0ne labs, we are committed to research in emerging areas.

After two years of intense studies, our scientists have come up with the following results:

In a startling revelation, it was shown that the fashion-football attraction is caused by stimulation of the models' exposed skin by the reagents in a football player's sweat.

The phenomenon, known as Sweat Fetish, works as follows:

Playing football for a long time causes expansion of the sebacious glands due to excessive sweating. These swelled up glands start manufacturing concentrated amounts of strongly bonded larger organic molecules.

These molecules, which resemble the C-60 Fullrene, are known as Bi-Alkylated-Laevorotatory-Lacto-Spheres (BALLS).

On the other hand, the skin of women dressed up in minimal clothing becomes overly sensitive due to critical exposure to the atmosphere.

A typical model in revealing clothes was found to have a much higher concentration of the compund Bi-Oxy Ozono Butane (BOOB) on her skin, which acts as a receptor site.

When the BALLS molecules in the footballer's smelly sweat are dispersed in the air, they are adsorbed by the BOOBS receptors on the model's skin where they act as pheromones, leading to intense stimulation.

The entire process can be summarized by the equation:

With the above scientific knowledge, our scientists hypothesized the following typical first conversations between the two:

Scenario 1

Boy: What do you do?

Girl: I show off my body in skimpy outfits. And what do you do?

Boy: I kick a round object around in the playground.

Girl: We are both so grown up and mature. Lets fuck.

Scenario 2

Girl: You look tired.

Boy: I've been playing with my balls all day long.

Girl: But there's no one else on the field.

Boy: I like to play with myself.

Girl: Maybe I can join you. Will you teach me?

Boy: Sure. Do you want to know how I bend it?

And that is how it usually starts.

That done, we are now working on determining the future prospects for some other football players.

Further studies will be based on the following subject, who in his eight years of football, has failed to attract any cat-walking female.

T9 Retaliates

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:37:00 +0000

I've been having a lot of fun screwing around with people with text messages lately. (Link)

Apparently, T9 didn't like it.
And yesterday was time for its payback.

A concerned friend sent me the following message:
"How is your Google Internship thing going?"

I typed my reply.
It read "They selected me."

That is not what I had written.

Ever felt that even a predictive text software can point a finger and laugh back at you, as if in response to your mockery of others?
Oh! The humanity.

Lesson of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:47:00 +0000

Never sign into GTalk in IPC.
If you do sign in, put "REMEMBER TO LOG OFF" on the desktop in font size 256.
If that is too difficult, set an alarm that repeats every five minutes reminding you that you have to log off before leaving.
If you are already back to your room without doing so, calculate the chances that someone you know (and is not evil) will go to the IPC and sit on the same computer and will saintfully sign you out, and try to relax.
Never sit next to Mayank Mohta in the IPC. The mofo won't sign you out even if he finds out that you have left.
If nothing works, contact ChunChun.

GFU!

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:05:00 +0000

A good friend recently told me how messages over Gtalk can be easily misinterpreted, and how the misunderstandings caused by these can leave misleading impressions of you in the most misfortunate ways.

For example, since I first had a chat in 2001, I have considered :x as a smiley for anger.

Turns out the definition has changed. It now stands for a kiss.

When confused, she did prompt me for it and I did learn the commonly accepted meaning of it. (Thankyou for clearing that out), but it also made me think of all the people I have sent that smiley to in the past eight years and what all they've thought on seeing it.

All the mis's mentioned in the opening statement occur because of two reasons:

1) We are always typing and reading too fast, mostly without thinking too much.

2) We use too many abbreviations.

Consider this.

A friend told me yesterday how she had got a Pom PAship.

To start with, Pom looks a bit like Porn when you quickly dash your eyes from left to right, doesn't it?

Anyway, thats not important here. I was sane enough to read the message again.

Once I got the meaning and had a breath of relief, I responded to the good news with "gfu!"

It was supposed to mean "Good For U!"

Now, I don't know what she made out of it.. but I used the same "gfu" in a conversation with this other friend on GTalk today and he interpreted it as "Go Fuck Urself!"

Lesson learnt: Always use the phone for important conversations. If at all you use GTalk for casual ones, make sure the other person is smart enough to analyze things based on context.

Algo (rythm?)

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:14:00 +0000

This APOGEE, Computer Science Association is conducting a programming event called Algorythm.

This is what the introduction reads:

Ever felt that all the semicolons, braces, syntax etc. etc. are slowing you down. AlgoRhythm is a contest in which you need not worry about anything of this sort.^{[citation needed]}

Sounds good, eh?

Take a closer look.

The rules section says:

1. Use indentation to indicate block structure. The statements of the constructs should come as per the indentation, towards right.

2. Looping constructs such as for loop should follow the format i -> 1 to n-1

3. For comments use ‘//’ at the beginning of the comment.

4. Any assignment to any variable should be of the form: A[i] -> 5

5. Variables defined within a given procedure are local to that procedure. They can’t be used globally.

6. A variable representing an array or object is treated as a pointer to the data representing the array or object. For all fields f of an object x, setting y->x causes f[y] = f[x]. Sometimes, a pointer will refer to no object at all. In this case, give it the special value NIL.

7. When objects are passed, the pointer to the data representing the object is copied, but the object's fields are not.

8. The boolean operators "and" and "or" are short circuiting. That is, in the expression "x and y" x is evaluated first.

And these are only SOME of the rules!

Now, give it a thought.

The aim of the competition was to not worry about braces, semicolons and syntax, and in the process of doing that, they have made the participants learn a completely new programming language.

That adds to the "worrying about syntax".. doesn't it?

So once you have spent one week in completely understanding all the rules of this new language, you can proceed and spend the remaining three days before the deadline on actually solving the problems.

This, however, should encourage you to take part. Being the ONLY participant, it will not be much of a fight to win.

On a more serious note, I encourage you to participate in all events conducted by CSA this APOGEE.

Visit the Code & Simulate section on the Website. There are a lot of interesting and innovative competitions to choose from, both online before APOGEE and on campus during the event.

My latest Hobby

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:35:00 +0000

is to judge people's intelligence and presence of mind by intentionally misspelling words in text messages.

For example, I sent "Coming as east as I can" to a friend waiting for me in C'not to which he responded with "Which side of C'not is east?"

"Freakin' T9!" is what I replied.

Of course, most of my friends are pretty smart and understand what "Lets go for a wall", "How did it in?" and "Dual you!" are supposed to mean.

In fact, they're either smart or just text message geeks, but whatever be the case, it is satisfactorily amusing whenever somebody falls for it.

And that is how I an passing time there days, Dear diary.

Morning Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:38:00 +0000

DiD - III

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:54:00 +0000

Unfortunately, its a true story.

DiD - II

noreply@blogger.com (Vineet Keshari) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:33:00 +0000

I do go for the occasional morning walk.