Boriyat...

"Boriyat ho rahi hai, kaise hataun isko", a friend asked today morning. At the office, I was also in the same mood, and didn't know how to answer. Actually I was looking for an answer to the same question for quite some time now.

To add to the problems, the world wasn't going to end on December 21st!!! I then replied stupidly to that message, and went out for a coffee. And on the roads, I could see so many vehicles lined up, honking furiously. And then I noticed a traffic display board flashing in red "Today is Monday, No Horn Day".

I then realized everyone else on the roads must be bored, else why would they be honking so loudly. May be the sound waves might be helping them to clear away the vehicles ahead of them, but it was clearly not working.

Had I been a superman, I would probably have left my full-time job, and helped the people on the roads by clearing away the traffic. Or at the very least, kicked the honky vehicles far away into the space.

But, sadly, I am not.

Damt it. Google Chrome is crashing whenever I try to open Facebook.

Anyway, coming back to "Boriyat", I have seen people being very innovative to attack their boriyat on the raods.

1. A girl, I saw, was combing and doing her make up while stuck on traffic.
2. A guy, who was having his breakfast inside his car.
3. Another guy, who forgot to wear his shoes at home, trying to find the right pair of socks from his 10 odd socks stockpile.
4. A few mothers, getting their kids ready inside the car.
5. And so many people, talking over the phones even after the light had turned green.

Isn't that awesome? Everyone, finds a way to get busy, in something or the other. As for me, I have got a bike. I can't really do all these things while stuck in the traffic. So, how do the bikers pass their time on the roads? 

1. Traffic jams are a great time to clean our helmets and glasses.
2. Playing games on your mobile is also a great hit among the bikers.
3. Trying to balance the bike without any support.
4. Getting to know more about cars and their logos.
5. Trying to predict when the light would turn green

How boring it is for a biker on the road stuck in traffic!!! Sometimes, I have had this thought about when they would make flying bikes, and how it would be convenient. Or I have thought about when there would be a traffic system which would ask me to leave my  home every morning, so that I would reach office without hitting any red lights. And if it would work or not. 

Long time... Nothing really has changed...

I almost forgot about this place. Not anymore. I will make new posts surface like scams of politicians. I guess, I went into the MMS mode for a few days. But, unlike MMS, I can't really control my lips. I need to speak, and speak out loud, whatever it might be.

Today, I started to study for an exam. The fun thing is, I have to study 4 thick and big books, and appear for 4 exams this Saturday and Sunday. I was under the impression that, the "Engineering Instinct" within me was still intact. The truth is: "It's all gone". And now, I am nowhere, clueless about how I will pass the exams. Anyway, that's boring, isn't it?

The interesting thing? Ummm.. Well, nothing new as such. But, new things would pour in soon, as I rise and shine again after the exams. All this exams affair, are here to stay for some time. So, every few months, I need to study a little bit, and somehow jump over to the next semester. And if I am good at clearing those mighty walls, I could call myself an MS in Software Systems in roughly 2 years from now.

For now, back to studies. I will be coming back soon. :)

Tejas won't be ready before 2015

For those, who are not aware, Tejas, is a lightweight, multi-role fighter being developed by HAL, India. It is a tailless, compound delta-wing design powered by a single engine. It came from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program, which began in 1980s to replace India's aging MIG-21 fighters.

It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, advanced digital cockpit, multi-mode radar, integrated digital avionics system, advanced composite material structures and a flat rated engine.

I sometimes wonder, how a few adjectives make a really great impact. I mean, I don't really understand what exactly does the "integrated digital avionics system" mean. What the hell it is integrated with, and do we still have to call a computer "non-digital" in today's world?

"Advanced Composite material", it doesn't exactly say what it does. Seems that, it uses some material, some sort of wood perhaps, mixed with soil, and the mixture is what they refer to the "Advanced Composite Material".

It was supposed to reach final operational clearance in 2013, and now it seems that it won't be ready before 2015.

Well, you know, where I stay in Bangalore, my place is a few footsteps away from HAL campus. And, randomly, and very frequently, you could hear a deafening sound all around my place. For the first few days, I thought that sound could be coming from some construction work nearby. But, soon enough, I figured that the sound's origin was probably from the HAL campus. Well, I don't really know, because, NAL (National Aerospcae Laboratories) is also nearby. But, I think HAL guys have started testing the Tejas so-called "flat-rated" engine, since, 2015 is not very very far.

Oh, and by the way, there's yet another organization in close vicinity to the HAL and the NAL campus. It's called the ADA ( Aeronautical Development Agency). And there's yet another one, called the ADE (Aeronautical Development Establishment).

A small story regarding the engine: Initially the engine was planned to be developed indigenously, and a factory was also set up for the same. However, after a few years, the scientists realized that they just couldn't do it. So, they procured it from GE. Those factories are still working on something though, perhaps, trying to copy brand new engines to make the indigenous ones.

Why the hell am I writing about this? 30 years is a long long time. And Tejas, on the face of it, doesn't seem to be completed in the near future. I guess, they will end up buying some sub-standard outdated fighters from someone. And all the money spent in it's research and development would go down the drains.

As if the ever rising corruption wasn't enough, on the other hand,  the government machinery doesn't even think before wasting it's citizens' hard-earned money. I do agree, that there has been a lot of in the field of space and satellite research, but it's still negligible to the amount of money being spent. We can do better than this for sure. But until we realize or accept that we need to improve, the change is a far away, farther than I can imagine.

Cooking classes

Looks like I am not a bad cook at all. I haven't been taking classes, but the food I cook tastes good. Here are some pictures.

Masoor Daal

Poha - Breakfast

You have to forgive me for not writing down the recipe. Sorry, I don't know the names of half of the ingredients I use.

The olden golden days

Long back, when we are just out of college, and had joined our first jobs, fun had a different meaning. The times were different. The friends we had were different. The places we visited were different.

This photo was taking at the Brigade road, during the Diwali celebrations in the year 2007. You can see two friends of mine on that bike. And I was on a bike as well when this photo was taken. I think I had clicked this photo.

Vishal and Felix on that bike. On the other side, I think it was Kunal and Me. Not very sure.

I came across this photo today. I vividly remembered me taking this photo, or may be Kunal, but, with time, had forgotten about those days. It's been at-least 2 years now that I have stepped into the Brigade Road. And yeah, I am still in Bangalore. Friends from those days are now far far away. I get to talk to them over Facebook, phone, Gtalk etc. But, then we don't have that kind of fun anymore. It might be just me. Other's might be enjoying their new life for sure.

This is yet another photo from the yesteryears. Weekends meant one thing. BEER and lots of it...... And House No. 420 in Koramangala 8th block. Sometimes, I miss those days. Those were really crazy days. Want to go back to the Olden Golden Days for sometime.

Conversations and her

She is either very intelligent, or just loves to show off her arguing powers. One day, out of nowhere, she wanted to test me. Usually, I lose the argument, irrespective of the topic of the discussion. Here we go.

A chat transcript.

She: Did you see a soul-mate (past, present and future) when you first looked into my eyes?

I instantly knew that I cannot afford to be outright truthful here. Didn't reply for a long time, pondering over my course of action, and also anticipating the possible repercussions.

She: (Impatient) You didn't answer my question.
He: (Oh no.. Not again!!) Ummm, No.
She: No? You did not see a soul-mate in me? You are lying.
Me: (Trying to be funny, to divert her) Living life with you is enough. I don't want to linger around with you after we become ghosts.

She: You are saying that we were not together in our previous births?
Me: I don't remember. (Trying to remember harder as ever)
She: And you don't want to be with me in your next birth?
Me: Global warming, everything will be over soon. So, I am not thinking about my next birth. :)

She: Oh...
She: Okay ("Ok" would have been fine, but "Okay" is a sign of the approaching storm)
She: (She was reading a book just before we started this conversation) Then, I guess, I will read my book.
Me: Hahahahaha
She: Huh!!!

And after that, we had to continue this discussion over the phone and finally reach a conclusion, well, not exactly, but to a point where she can go back to reading her book normally, and me, well, telling myself, "A job well done" and gave myself a pat on my back. :D I won this time. Yay!!!

Ortel Communications: A review

You have probably not heard about this company if you are not from Bhubaneswar. I never wanted to write reviews for anything, other than, may be gadgets. But then, I had to mention about this company here. You will soon know why.

It's been more than a month that I have been using this broadband connection at home. When we got an internet connection (a broadband wired connection) at home, there were no other private providers here. Well, the BSNL guys told that a connection to our house wasn't possible at that point in time. Frankly speaking, we didn't have any choice whatsoever. Ortel Communication, had a monopoly everywhere in Orissa. Although, I was very reluctant to give my approval, we hooked onto their network.

Ok. To be frank, this is not a review, rather an outburst after all the torture and frustration I have gone through. So, I would only talk about their negatives here.

• At-least once a day, their modem goes offline. ("loses power"). <<----- That's what they say. And we have to call them every-time to let them know that the poor modem has lost power.
• I had plans of staying at home for sometime, and I would be also working from home for some time. So, I upgraded our connection to a 700kbps plan. I thought it would be enough for my needs. But then I realized that, although the download speed was almost close to 700kbps, the upload speed was pathetic at best (@100kbps). WHAT!!!!
• The day we upgraded our plan, I saw a weird problem. Almost all the pages I opened up, it had an annoying advertisement. I was frustrated, and tried to hunt down the problem. I re-installed my browsers, un-installed all my browser add-ons, but still the problem persisted. After a few more investigations, to my horror, I found that Ortel Communications was injecting this piece of advertisement on each and every page, by intercepting my requests.
• I started writing mails to them on the e-mail addresses provided on their website. Hahaha, I knew what would happen next. 2 out of the 3 recipients mail bounced back. And for the one recipient, I haven't heard back yet. I kept on doing this for 5 days, yet I haven't received even an acknowledgement.
• I did a Google search to find out if anyone else has this problem. Of course, Ortel has it's monopoly in Bhubaneswar.  I found almost everyone was having the same problem.

There is a thread here where you can find more people complaining. You would find a few interesting stories as well.  I had never thought that an ISP would do something like this. When I asked one of the customer care guys about this, they said that they do this because Ortel is providing internet connection in rural areas at a lower cost, and so they had to compensate for it by adopting this. WHAT!!!!! You are awesome Ortel communications. Great going.

By the way, here's the code that they injecting into every website that you visit.  They get their ads onto our webpages by using this script.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ui.streamride.net/ui.js"></script>

This is almost equal to cheating the customers. I don't really care if they are getting some extra revenue. It's just so annoying to see those ads all the time. Here is a sample of how those ads look like on your browsers. This is, in my view, breach of privacy and security and cheating.

The New Year Post

Ah!! this time I am late. Damn!! There were quite a few reasons. But, finally, this had to come.

Image source: Wikimedia commons

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you. :)

Not much happened when the year changed for me. I was at home, sitting idle, watching the TV. Everyone else at home was asleep. I was the only one at home, waiting for the new year. The date changed with no big bang. After that, I switched of the rooms lights, and got busy with the movie. At about half-past midnight, my phone rang.

"An unknown number". Must be someone from college, I thought. Without concentrating much on the caller, my eyes still focused on the TV, I answered the call while I lowered down the volume.

A girl answered.

She: "Hi, Happy New Year".... Come down, I am waiting for you.

She sounded very very familiar, and I almost instantaneously recognized her. She was Radhika, a friend from school. We weren't really great friends, and we probably hadn't talked for more than 10 years now. I wished her back, still trying to confirm if it was her.

Me: Hey, A very very Happy New Year to you. But, why are you here at this time?
She: Come down. I am shivering outside. We are going somewhere.

This was a mistake, I thought. It can never be her. Even if it were her, she wouldn't be here waiting for me in-front of my house. I got up from the chair, walked towards the window and looked down. I could see the shadow of a car below in the dark. I could also see a girl inside the car, although it was just her silhouette.

Me: Ummm. Wait. It's a mistake. Who is this by the way?
She: Come on. Be a sport. Let's go now. I am shivering.

Still confused, I thought of going down and getting a better view of the woman waiting inside the car. And then I heard a big loud horn. Startled, I almost trembled and closed my eyes.

The TV was still playing that movie, and I was on my chair. I had dozed off.

I never knew anyone called Radhika. Huh.... Just to be sure, I looked down from the window. The roads were empty, and even the car. This time, the street lights helped me look inside the car.

I wished if she were a bit more patient and not honked so loud.

Dreams. Our minds can be so imaginative. I am sure, if she wouldn't have honked, I would have celebrated the next year in my dreams as well. A whole year of thoughts, within a span of a few hours. That would have been fun.