Monday, July 23, 2007

Such a small world

Yesterday, I went with my mom and dad to visit some old neighbours of ours, "the Sharma's". It was nice, meeting them after about three years or so. Before that, we were neighbours for some five+ years.
Though I didnot had that much fun, which I thought I could. Almost throughout, it was like mom busy with aunt, dad with uncle, and me, and their two kids, just watching them, and smiling in between.
When we were about to leave, some of their relative dropped in. The troop wasn't a big one, consisted just of uncle's sister, and her daughter-in-law. Then, again a little general discussion started.
The daughter-in-law was newly wed, maybe a few months or so. So, then a little discussion about where did she is from. They moved in Delhi just about two years ago. 'Where in Delhi??', 'Mayur Vihar', came the answer. Apparently, we were also in Mayur Vihar, some two years back. So, next so obvious question from my mom, "Which phase???", "Phase-II" was the reply. "OOOooo.... even we were in phase-II"; "Which pocket??", "Pocket-B"; "Oh oh..even we were in pocket-B, there was this Bal Bhavan School, my son was there only /* referring to me.. :D */, and there was this 'Neelam mata ka mandir' ". "Yeah.." said she. Now, the next question was flat number. She said "161-A". I was relived a bit, I thought she lived in same house as ours.. :P. But hey, this wasn't far from ours', we were in 167-B. /* A for ground floor, B for first floor, and not blocks or something, so it was pretty close */. I was thinkin it was close enough. But I was proven wrong in a little while.
There was a little discussion between her and my mom, about there that person lived and blah blah blah. And in that discussion only, she said "We were in 166-B for a little while". Now, that house was just next to us, and that you say 'close enough'. They moved into that 166-B just a few days before we left our 167-B. And guess what, my mom and she have had some conversation at that time also. And now they remembered every bit of it. And even I did, I saw that young girl once or twice in her balcony, though she looked pretty different than at present. At that time only, she once enquired, through my mom, for she was trying to get a job in Bal Bhavan, my school. I told her, its not a nice place; it actually is not, specially not for teachers. Anyways, we are not discussion my school.
But the thing is, wow, I have never been in such a co-incidence. It was close.
Really, such a small world.


FIND OF THE DAY : I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

My new fan

Yesterday, got up at around 1000 hrs. Thanks, my PS is over :).

Around 1300 hrs, I was sitting in front of this stupid machine, called computer, as usual; when my mother called me, and asked me to get a little stuff from the mother dairy. /* In case you are not a delhite, by mother dairy I am referring to government run shops which sell milk products and vegetables */. I had to comlpete the job before 1400 hrs, when the shop gets closed, so, after lazing around for a while, I went there, and this is where I met my new fan :).

I was supposed to get some tomatoes and potatoes, /* gen sabji bhaji */. I 'selected' them, put them into a basket, and was waiting for my turn. There was a girl, getting some onions and tomatoes. And there on the other side, was my new fan, the salesperson. While weighing her stuff, he weighed the onions, and then tomatoes. Though such activities are generally not much interesting to observe, but it was interesting to see that one single tomato weighed 300 gms. Both the salesman, and that girl were a bit amazed, but anyways, out of all those tomotoes which she selected for herself, she took only one, weighing 300 gms. I guess she had to get 250 gms of them.
I also had collected a few, intending to take home around 500 gms of those. I also had a packet of potatoes. I weighed my potatoes, on the other machine, it read 1.250 kgs. Anyways, the girl was over with her stuff, and cash transaction followed. She was still managing the change, when I put my potatoes on the machine which the salesman had. It read 1.500 kgs. Now, this was ambiguous. I immediately prompted, and then the salesman realised, he did not set the zero properly. And this solved the mystery of that single tomato weighing 300 gms. After my potatoes, the girl's stuff was weighed again. The salesman was smiling at me, ' sir, aapne bataya na hota to aaj to aise hi jaata'. I smiled back. The girl, she also must had been smiling, but damn, that salesperson was talking to me, and I couldn't look at her :(.
Now, the girl was again packing her stuff, about to leave. I put my tomatoes forward, and instructed the salesman, 'bhaiya, aadha kilo kar dena'. He put all those tomatoes on the machine, and the digital display read "0.500 kgs". And this was more than enough to make him my fan. 'aapke haathon mein to jaddo hai'. I again smiled back to him. And yeah, even I was thinking, 'kamaal hai, eggjactly half kg :P'. The girl, she was at some distance now, else I could had expected a 'girl fan' also... :D


FIND OF THE DAY : People have the right to be stupid. Some people abuse that privilege

Friday, July 20, 2007

I am dead sure.. no one is gonna read my previous post.. such a long one... that happens when you are too lazy, and stop posting regularly. ANyways, who cares, mayb I'll read that, five years down the line... :P

50% engineer?? Definitely!!!

Its been pretty long time since I wrote something by myself on the blog. Well, was a lil' busy with PS thing.
Yeah, I am gonna describe it in brief.
PS a.k.a. Practice School.
Its one of its kind programme at BITS, Pilani. I am not too sure, but I guess in India atleast, no other institute offers such a nice way of industrial training to its students. We have PS-I, after second years, during the summer break, for around 55 days. There is PS-II, six month long, in the final year.
So, it was PS-I for me this summer. Somewhere around in march, we were told about the various centres all over the country where PS-I will be conducted. All 800 students from my batch were to fill in the preference order, and were alloted one of those 'practice stations'; as per merit and the preferences.
I got Centre for Railway Information Systems, Delhi /* to be referred as CRIS, here onwards */. It was my first preference. Reason number one, it was in Delhi /* :) */, and I expected there must be some interesting thing to learn there. /* damn, I lie big time, the secondary reason was its location in delhi, south delhi, the posh area... close to DU south campus.. :P */.
Anyways, I had one of my ex-wingie also at this centre... that's cool.
So, this PS-I thing was to start on 24th may'07. Now, as I told you, this unique thing in our insti, they had a few more arrangements for us. Each centre had one instructor /* read : faculty member */ and one student co-instructor /* a third yearite */. By the rule book, these two persons were to look after our training, they had to come regularly to the centre(s) assigned to them. And if they go by the rule book, its sure is not a good news for the students, like me.. :P. And it pretty much wasn't in my case. And apart from that, in this period of 54 odd days, we had two quizes /* written tests */, two group discussions, report submission and seminar, in the midterm, and at the end also. These were the arrangements made by our insti for us. This all sounds a bit wierd, but that's the way it is, for us.
We had to strictly follow the timings, 0930 hrs to 1730 hrs, five days a week. I took just one leave. A bit hard for a BITSian... :P. But, yeah, it helped in see the professional one. Though CRIS was a government organisation, it would had been different scenario had it been a private organization, still, it was all professional. On the second day of our PS, we eight people were alloted various departments, as per our interests. In a nutshell, CRIS takes care of all the IT related work for Indian Railways. So, it had much of software engineers in there. But, yours truely, being a eletronics student, is not much interested in that. So, I went to the telecom department. And it wasn't that a bad place. Though it mainly was about networking only, still, I loved the name 'telecom', which
sounds more of electronics, than computers :P.
It was for the first time that BITS had a training centre in CRIS. So, there were no such special arrangements there. Anyhow, we started our training. For a first few days, just saw the networking facilities there... saw the network devices, routers, switched, and the web servers hosting indian railways websites like irctc, trainenquiry, were also there. There were database servers also in the complex, bhramha and vishnu. It was pretty nice to see them. Now, we were to be alloted some project to work over for next 50 odd days. This department didnt had any special project or something going, where we 50% engineers could had contributed. So, it was almost decided that we'll be doing some study based project only. Later on, they asked us to make a little software to help them generate reports for network maintenance. So, it was like, we were three people in telecom departments, yours truely, Piyush, and Neha /* the latter names from BITS Pilani goa campus */. And we had two projects, one that software thing, and one analytic one, analysis of the next STARS network implemented by CRIS in Andaman and Nicobar. I am not going in any detail of them, not because its a state secret or something, but I dont want to. Yours truely and Piyush were on the analytic one, while Neha was handling the software thing, in which I also contributed unofficially. I would like to share my experience in that software development also, maybe sometime later.
Anyways... we showed our engineering skills pretty well all through the training. The two quizes, light, the two GD's, light. But yeah, that seminar and report thing, it did require some amount of energy to be spent.
The midterm report... it wasn't much trouble some for me, I prepared it one telecommunication basics, the thing I am pretty much interested in. Enjoyed preparing that report. And seminar, it didnt had much to worry about the presentation, but I had to prepare the slides also. But it was bit easy with the report already prepared. I started to work on the presentation at around 2200 hrs the previous night, and completed it by 1330 hrs. It went pretty well, but the audience was not from this field, it could had been better.
And the final presentation, the senior most person from telecom department was going to be there. It was bit scary also... that guy... I mean sir, I am pretty much impressed with his knowledge, and his attitude toward us also. And we were pretty scared for he definitely was going to cross question. We divided the presentation among two of us. The presentation, was not that bad, but boring for other trainees, who were from other departments. Though at that time I thought, not my fault, its never gonna interest them. But later on I realised, I should had made it interesting for those people also. Anyway, our fear, he did cross questioned both of us. A few we were able to answer back, in some, he shared his 'gyaan' with us. But at the end, he said he was pretty much impressed by the way we organised the stuff, and the way we presented, it was really good for students of our level, still wondering if that was just to flatter us. Anyway, the final presentation was over. Just that crappy report left. That day, we went to play pool, eight people, one table, half hour, it was much of fun there.
2-3 days more, now this report didnt interest me much, as I was sure that no one is going to give a shit for it. Completed it, got it printed, got a few things wrong, our prof almost threw the report at my face, not literally, the pages were not binded, and he realised it on time, thank god, else I would had been collecting them from the floor. Anyways, thanks to the co-instructor, a student like us :), she helped correcting it. Soon came the last day, we submitted the report, completed the formalities.. and yeah.. PS was over...and now its history
our second year was over...

50% engg??
I don't judge it by the grades, but by the way we ahdnled things at PS. All the work started at deadline, completed at extended deadline... :)
I sure am showing signs of a good engineer.. :)


FIND OF THE DAY : History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Some more engineering humour.. :P

What is said...
What it means

A number of different approaches are being tried...
We don't know where we're going, but we're moving.

An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach to the problem...
We just hired three guys.. We'll let them kick it around for a while.

Developed after years of intensive research...
It was discovered by accident.

Modifications are underway to correct certain minor difficulties...
We threw the whole thing out and are starting from scratch.

Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive...
The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.

Test results were extremely gratifying...
It works, and boy are we surprised !

The design will be finalized in the next reporting period...
We haven't started this job yet, but we've got to say something.

The entire concept is unworkable...
The only guy who understood the thing just quit.

We need close project coordination...
We should have asked someone else.
Alternate: Let's spread the responsibility for this.


Reference
[1] gdargaud

I know, its been quite sometime since I wrote something by myself. But seems good days are over. A few engineering experiences of my own will soon follow. Not good for you, huh!!! But good for me... :D

FIND OF THE DAY : I am really really lazy... seems engineer inside me is coming to full power.. :D

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Rinoa Heartilly

A little more of Rinoa Heartilly...
I dont think I need to write anything else in this post...

FIND OF THE DAY : For an optimist the glass is half full, for a pessimist it's half empty, and for an engineer is twice bigger than necessary.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

You Might Be An Engineer If...

- You have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.
- You enjoy pain.
- You know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
- You chuckle whenever anyone says "centrifugal force".
- You've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
- It is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
- You frequently whistle the theme song to "MacGyver".
- You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
- You think in "math".
- You've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.
- You hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function.
- You have a pet named after a scientist.
- You laugh at jokes about mathematicians.
- The Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.
- You can translate English into Binary.
- You can't remember what's behind the door in the engineering -building which says "Exit".
- You have to bring a jacket with you, in the middle of summer, because there's a wind-chill factor in the lab.
- You are completely addicted to caffeine.
- You avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to the eventual heat-death of the universe.
- You consider ANY non-engineering course "easy".
- When your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.
- The "fun" center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
- You'll assume that a "horse" is a "sphere" in order to make the math easier.
- The blinking 12:00 on someone's VCR draws you in like a tractor beam to fix it.
- You bring a computer manual / technical journal as vacation reading.
- The salesperson at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions.
- You can't help eavesdropping in computer stores... and correcting the salesperson.
- You're in line for the guillotine... it stops working properly... and you offer to fix it.
- You go on the rides at Disneyland and sit backwards to see how they do the special effects.
- You have any "Dilbert" comics displayed in your work area.
- You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work.
- You have never backed up your hard drive.
- You haven't bought any new underwear or socks for yourself since you got married.
- You spent more on your calculator than on your wedding ring.
- You think that when people around you yawn, it's because they didn't get enough sleep.
- You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.
- You've ever calculated how much you make per second.
- Your favorite James Bond character is "Q," the guy who makes the gadgets.
- You understood more than five of these jokes.
- You make a copy of this list, and post it on your door (or your home page !)

These are not my own, I read them here. And you'll love to read the whole thing if you actually are an engineer. Else, I guess any ways, I'll post the rest soon here. :)

FIND OF THE DAY : Engineer : A person who always has more than one solution to a problem, chooses the one most complicated, and gets screwed. PS : The find of the day is my own, actually my recent experience.