By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

Science doesn't get better than this.
Just came across this wonderful collection of Murphy's laws.

Dig this, before you go into the link

If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious

A cool collection of Murphy's Laws

I always say

"You might call it coincidence; but I call it Providence".

I believe in Providence; i believe that whatever happens in this world (which itself is maya) , has a 'Purpose'.

So, it was when I went to CRIS (Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems) to meet my professor; inspite of having an exam the next day. Unfortunately, or I should say forunately, the professor wasn't there and he was supposed to come after 15 minutes. I thought I would wait. I strolled around the lab, when I came to a place wherein my professor had stuck up 2 emails which he had received from 2 students who have just passed out and are now in their graduate programmes in the US.

The mails thanked the professor for infusing interest in Robotics in them. One of the students now at USCR spoke about US professors perplexed at the huge churnover of VLSI / Communications engineers from India, and very few in other multi-disciplinary areas. The mails were truly inspiring, i should say. I never had any ambitions of getting into VLSI / Communications, but this really put another piece in the jigsaw puzzle that my mind is. I truly feel Robotics , Intelligent Systems, Cybernetics, Simulation are high-end areas in the future, where I would like to pursue further studies.

Going by the state, I might want to do a course on Artificial Intelligene when i return back to BITS after the winter break. One day, there would be a brilliant-yet-safe AI robot built by a team of brilliant scientists and engineers; and I would be in that team !

Yup, If I continue my graduate studies in Engineering, Robotics & Intelligent Systems it would be....

Ha ha ha !!
Some sort of new enthu among our wingies...gave birth to a new community in Orkut(Are you on Orkut? Ask me for an invite.) called Male Chauvinists.

If you ask me, i am not at all a Male chauvinist.....I am all FOR females ;-)
But then, did not want to spoil the enthu in the wing.
The starting of this community created a stir in one of the wings in the girls bhawan, with they ridiculing the community in theirs. I chose to bring the heat down, and wrote a big essay on what i percieve as Male Chauvinism, and how i can call myself a male chauvinist in that context.
Coupled with that was a small punch for that posting of theirs. Read it all at the community.

Whew! Make me think how more hopeless a person can be in life. Doing all this worthless, pointless things. Anyways, everything so far has been healthy fun.

More to come, I presume.

As expected....i am off to a shaky start in the compres. Hope to scrape through.
More rumblers coming up.
Gotta shutdown the computer and study !

LinuxSecurity - Why do you run different operating systems at home?

A wonderful survey report on a site.....sure does reflect very truly what people have in mind.

Well, my answer is Linux for Network Security....Win for games.

If you are not running Linux...go get Linux

Check out a brilliant series of postings
and also for all those linux non-users; you better read

http://atulchitnis.net
http://www.comversations.com

At times, I realize the utter insignificance of what I am doing at his place.....whereas in the complementary set of time I feel heavenly, i feel that I am doing what no man has ever done.

Ultimately, I realize that I am just another brick in the wall, though simultaneously I concur that every man is created for a purpose. A man does what he does, until his destiny is revealed. I am waiting for that moment.....and I asking WHY the moment has not yet come.

Well, as I sit in front of my comp listening to the song "Dreamer" by Ozzy Osbourne; the whole of my wing studies bigtime for the exams.

I read the blog of a person who is pursuing his B.E.- EEE here at BITS Pilani (he is about to passout , though ). He is at the very crossroads of his career.....dreams of being a MBA from the IIMs.....fails in CAT 2k4.....takes time to recover from the shock.....questions the very dream of his to be a MBA.....and then...BOUNCES back.
for more read http://srinathnagarajan.blogspot.com

As i read through the blog, I could foresee myself in that situation 2 years down the lane.
I dream, as Ozzy says, of better days. I dream of being an MBA from the IIMs....but then i question the very basic dream of mine to become an MBA by losing whatever i did in my 4 years doing BE Electrical and Electronics Engineering at BITS Pilani. The voices of scores of my teachers, relatives and well-wishers since my childhood saying "Abhilash, you are a born scientist!" echoes in the back of my cranium.

My story is of a guy who was inclined to pure sciences from a young age....comes over to this place called BITS Pilani...gains a lot of interest in business, management, entrepreneurship, finance, strategy; and now is caught in no man's land.

As on of my friends said, the best way to go about it is "Ask questions to yourself"
I have been doing this since ages. I am a deep thinker internally. Maybe the problem is I raise a lot of questions to myself!!!

As the clock ticks, so does the mind of the ali3n......

Well, the compres are round the corner.
Gotta ghot n ghot n ghot. This is bcoz of the sole reason that my performance this semester has been relatively hopeless.

But then.....there are other factors.
The newest craze to hit our wing - Counter Strike. One amazing game, which can keep everyone hooked in front of their computers for a minimum of 2 hours.

Then there is good ol' Virtua Tennis.

The new movies pouring in.....

Man...this is on heck of a week!!!

I just read this excellent review of Mozilla Firefox(MF) in BW and downloaded MF.

just check this out
http://atulchitnis.net/diary/showentry/246
And
And

And do get Firefox.....and take back the web.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com

Well, its 2113hrs in my watch right now. Tomorrow 0800 hrs is the Mech Sol test. I haven't studied a thing. All that i have been doing thru'out the day is sleep, surf, eat , and read 'BusinessWorld' ! I have come up with this crazy theory.....which is a slight modification of the popular one that goes around.
If i slog today n study i might score what i should score. But if i completely take it easy, i might score 10 marks less, which i might make up to atleast 5 by fluking ! ( i have this gr8 sense of intuition, u see !). So, why study ?!

The ali3n is in a very pensive mood, as he sits on the cranky wooden chair in his room and taps away at the keyboard.

The human has no choice in life....life is an illusion....choice is an illusion.
I will quote a real-life example that happened today.

Here I am chatting with one of my good friends....she asks a question "What was that?". Now, based on the last 3 lines i have typed in.....I can assume "that" in her question to be 2 things. If i choose one of them, that means she is very ignorant; if i choose the other, it is normal of a layman. Given she is a very intelligent girl, what do i go for? If i had any choice, i would have gone for the second one.

But then, as i said, choice is an illusion. I do not understand what came over me..but i chose the first one. I made a total mockery of myself. And the rest, as they dont say is forgettable.

So, it is ultimately that life comes up with interesting situations where it seems you have to make a choice........but in reality you are predestined to take one path.........and you take it. But then , for you, it looks like you have a choice..........even if you believe in my version that choice is an illusion, you have to make a choice, though that choice is predestined.

Seems like a paradox ?? It isn't.

Think.

It was a fantastic Diwali...

Though i was pretty zonked in the afternoon, my spirits started flowing well after a good bath.
Had some yummy food in the dhaba, some close shaves at the cracker-bursting place in C'not, some real good time at the dance floor in the wing ..... good enough.

Wish you all a very very happy deepavali !!

Phew! I am totally exhausted ....
2 hours of mind-blowing music .......
music remixed to the core ......
live remixes......true DJ style ....
songs on request .......
From Bhangra to Indipop to Rock to Rap to Trance to Dance ....

Well, I didnt go to any dance bar ( of course, there is none in Pilani.)
I was in my wing in the hostel!!
We created a dance floor in the wing; music was live remixed by a brilliant software got by Ankur God ( the man solely pumped enthu into everyone ).
DJ brushing his CD to shouts of "Are you there with me !"..we had it all.

Well, we also shot a patriotic video !!

Hey, Fedora Core 3 is out.....all those linux geeks like me must have already downloaded it.
I am right now downloading it.

chek out http://fedora.redhat.com

More reviews on FC3 to be up on this blog.

OK...done with one bad bunch of tests.

NFS Underground 2 Demo is out .... Brilliant with a graphics Card, else pretty slow. The modeliing of the digital girls int the game is purely amazing, it may put God himself to shame !

Pondering over a Group Discussion Topic in a class today - " Love marriages are better than arranged ones."
Interesting, nah? Seems like this is an age-old topic...but thinking on a more serious note, there seem to be a lot of valid arguments on both sides.
Love Marriages appear better because one knows his/her partner in and out before marriage. So he/she can look out for the qualities he/she expects .
But marriages, in place like India are not just about a couple , but it is something between 2 families. So, arranged ones seem more acceptable.

The ali3n is thinkin....

As I was just pondering about how bad this sem is going , i fell into a blackhole....thinking deeply and deeply.. I landed at this question. A guy who has traditionally been very good at technical stuff, now realises that his destiny lies in becoming an entrepreneur; he starts loving management etc. at the expense of his technical studies which he is currently pursuing. Does this have any adverse impilcations on his future plans ? Should he retain his technical expertise( implies being the best in a domain ) or can he slightly let it loose, in order to develop several other vital skills which are necessary for an entrepreneur ? Well, the ali3n is still thinkin .......

After a seriously spirit-sapping preparation for one of the most dreaded yuck courses this sem - CP2..... finally the online is over.

Some late nite coding practice with AOM ( my wingie), helped a lot to breeze through one problem. And the Gods were with me, as Providence shone on me to help me solve the second problem. At the end, all that matters is I am back in business in CP, after a truly dismal performance in the first 2 tests. It doesnt matter whether I 'really' am a gr8 programmer or not ! ;-)

I am now down with some really bad fever n fatigue. This really scared the wits out of me before the online coz. I felt so damn tired, I could hardly eat an apple. As I type this out, I am enveloped by a sweater, a muffler, a cap etc.. Just hope that I am okay by tomorrow, else a makeup is on the anvil for ES !

So, the ali3n (what i call myself) has finally landed on the blogging arena....after a lot of years pondering whether to start blogging or not. I consider myself to be amazingly work-free, hence this effort. Keep watching this space, i say!