cnu

Moved to Posterous

2008-12-10T06:44:40Z

I have moved over this blog to posterous. If people were really following me on here, they would have noticed that most of the recent posts were done using the AutoPost feature of posterous. I am going to turn it off for now and going to start using posterous as my blog.
However, the posts here will remain and I have a use for these later. You can also follow me on twitter and facebook (autopost to these are turned on) .

So, follow cnu here from now on.

My worst fears

2008-12-02T12:02:00Z

This sunday morning I had a very bad dream. It is a combination of many of my fears. It all started out with me standing amongst a group of people in campus containing many high rise buildings. Then I notice that there is a board called TCS. I don't know why I am standing there - whether I work there or want to get a job.

Then there is some announcement and everybody begins to run inside the building. I am also running with all of them and atlast I caught up with a group of 2 guys and there were two other people following me. I was in some kind of a trance and was following them without even thinking what I was doing.

These two guys I was following run along all the stairs in the tallest building and kept running for atleast 5 minutes. Then they jump off the stairs to catch a rope hanging. They fail to catch it and both fall down and are in a pool of blood. I wanted to follow them, but atlast the girl gets hold of me and drags me down to a safer place.

"Safe" I thought for a moment it was, till I see that I was standing in a open type of a crude elevator (which they use to take the bricks and cement mix up the buildings). The girl I was with suddenly throws the lever and the elevator just drops off like a stone with me and the girl.

The worst part was the elevator was falling down but the altitude was rising. It was rising very fast and I can realise that I am dreaming but still my legs were shaky. After a minute or two, with a lot of effort I woke up.

After reading the post you would have realised that I am acrophobic, but I had mentioned that the dream was a combination of many of my fears. Guessing the other fears are left as an exercise to the reader.

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

What will you do with Rs.500

2008-11-28T14:31:22Z

What is the value of 500 Rs for different people in today's world ?

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Understanding Engineers

2008-11-28T14:14:58Z

Understanding Engineers - Take One

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday,minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike,threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take whatyou want."

The second engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fitted you anyway."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.

The engineer fumed, "What's with those blokes? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"

The priest said, "Here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a wordwith him." He said, "Hello, George! what's wrong with that group aheadof us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire lastyear, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four

What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five

The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a liberal arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.

One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."

Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."

The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civilengineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through arecreational area?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven

Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enoughfeatures yet.

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out tohim and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me backinto a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into aPrincess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."

Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter with you? I've told youI'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for one week anddo anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer replied, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog? Now that's cool."

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Infidelity Fail

2008-11-28T14:03:49Z

Infidelity Fail

via FAIL Blog: Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments by failblog on 11/25/08

Submitted by Erin M

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Why do people believe chain mails?

2008-11-28T05:43:58Z

A few weeks back I received a email through my college mailing list from a friend about "a girl who lost her hands in a bomb blast and she would get 1 paise for every person to whom the mail is forwarded to". I have received numerous emails before but this was the last straw. So I replied telling her not to be such a fool to believe such mails.

She said "believe it or not, will get satisfaction that am helping a girl... "

So I said "Along with the satisfaction you will also earn the sin of sending these chain mail forwards to hundreds of your friends." and asked her to instead send out a DD/Cheque to the hospital to which she asked me to prove that such mails aren't true.

Now I didn't know whether this girl was in her senses or not. I was determined to clearly explain her. So I typed out a long mail which I am producing here in full.

[Explanation]

Here are some of the reasons why I am sure that that email is a hoax.

There is no way anyone can track down how many people read a particular email.
There is no way to even know whether the email was forwarded or not.
Current mail standards doesn't have the ability to do thingsin point 1 and 2. And they won't be implemented forever - as for manypeople feel that privacy and confidentiality is more important thanearning 10 cents/mail.
Only if someone is tracking all the forwards, they will be able toaudit and give the poor girl the 25lacs. From #3 you can be sure thatthe forwards which you send are totally useless.
Money doesn'tgrow on trees. If you had attended your primary physics classes, youwould have learnt about Law of Conservation of Mass. In simple terms -the total amount of matter in the universe is constant. You cannotcreate more money. Especially, you cannot create more of anything byforwarding mails - except maybe the amount of spam mail, the anger ofyour friends who get the spam, etc.
You may counter #5 by telling that someone may donate the money forher cause. Assuming that there really is someone who is donating themoney for charity - it would be easy and faster for them to save thegirl's life (by directly donating to the hospital) than to wait for thehundreds of youngsters to forward mails to millions of people. It isn'tworth the effort.
If earning money was as easy as forwarding emails, then all indiansworking in the so-called indian multinational companies will be therichest guys. Sorry - couldn't resist that one.
After gettingtens and hundreds of such emails since you created an email account, ifyou had applied some logic - you would realise that this is a hoax andyou are only making a fool of yourself by forwarding. Come on, logiccan be applied to places other than the interview puzzles.

So you may ask why do people do such things? One simplereason is - it is a huge farm of email addresses waiting to beharvested. A simple regular expression would do the wonder of findingall the email addresses and this provides an opportunity for mailbombing the entire list of email addresses with ads for medicines whichcan do wonders to you-know-what and you-know-which. ;-)

Please do read this link about a similar email and the explanation about it. http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/cancer.asp

So people, I plead you to first check the facts first about such email forwards with www.snopes.com. It has a comprehensive list of email hoaxes, spam and chain mails and tell you whether it was true or not.

If
you refer to snopes first - then you will realise that forwarding 10
emails of some lord's picture brings you luck, coughing during an heart
attack, wax in the instant noodles, drinking cold water after a meal,
coca cola dissolving tooth, KFC using mutant chicken, etc are all false.

Btw,
just now saw that some rubber bands made in china that you wear on your
hair are made using recycled condoms. That one is true. Refer http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/hairband.asp

Be careful when you buy rubber bands. ;-)

Hope
to have helped. Even after this if you think that girl will get money
by forwarding emails - then forward to every individual email address
in the group instead of a single group ID. That way you can earn 6rs
for that girl instead of just 10ps. :D

Ha Ha.

[/Explanation]

After reading such a long explanation any one would understand and stop this nonsensical chain mail mania, but I was proved wrong after reading her reply.
"I dont take things seriously. I thought you might be getting angry onmy reply. whenever I saw these kind of mails i would pity for thosepeople. So,I will be forwarding atmost two people who r very close tome.(they will not tell anything na). "

உங்களை எல்லாம் திருத்தவே முடியாது

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Anna Nagar trip with friends

2008-11-27T20:26:46Z

Here are the pics we took when Sudarsan, Pratheema, Raju and me went out to Anna Nagar. And by the way, don't miss the shot from the tower lights.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Posterous or Tumblr

2008-11-27T20:13:08Z

I was thinking of a blog for cruns and yesterday decided to start off with tumblr. But now I see posterous and found that it has support for custom domains, multiple authors (setup multiple email addresses) and automatically posts to various other services too. And it automatically converts the files into nice gallery or MP3/video players.

One reason why I am thinking of a hosted model is that I didn't want to setup wordpress for this, but would like to export my data out if needed to some other blog engine at a later stage. Which one will allow me to export? I think Posterous may be more into listening into their customers as they are from ycombinator.

Maybe I should try out posterous a bit more before I jump into one. What do you think I should use? Posterous or Tumblr? Any other suggestions?

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

Tree on the wall

2008-11-19T06:59:27Z

Found this small tree on the wall in Kamaraj Hall

Posted by email from cnu's posterous

cnu @ 2008-08-22T00:51:00

2008-08-22T05:57:02Z

haha

ping.fm

2008-07-05T06:15:36Z

I have been a ping.fm user for 10 minutes now and really like the way the messages are sent to multiple services at the same time. If you want to try the beta use the beta code "pingyoulater" on http://ping.fm

cnu @ 2008-07-05T00:53:00

2008-07-05T06:09:12Z

Trying out http://ping.fm

Radhika's Wedding

2008-05-18T17:49:01Z

For the last two days (sat and sun) I was out in Chromepet for Radhika's wedding. On saturday, after some small function in her house in the morning, I went back home and return in the evening by around 18:30. Then our friends came in one by one and we all as usual took up the balcony. Sudarsan was sick with chicken pox and Pratheema was also having fever - so missed them. Radhika still remembers the days in college when we used to tease her with Sudarsan.

The reception was different, they had arranged for some sweets, drinks, ice creams, pop corn, etc where people can go and get things to eat (before the dinner). There were also balloons, comic characters for entertaining the small kids. I haven't seen any reception like this and this was a great idea to make the kids happy and quiet. I didn't hear even a single kid cry and everyone were happy.

The marriage hall was so hot and had no ventilation that I went down and was searching for some water source. While searching for it, I noticed one mickey mouse man was fiddling with the big fan, trying to stop the swing. On noticing it, I stopped and was waiting to see what he was doing. He stood in front of the fan and was trying to cool himself. I immediately took a pic (though I don't like to take pics of people without their permission, I thought since he will be anonymous, I will take one). This poor guy was so desperate for some air, that he was standing there for more than half an hour. I felt very sad for these guys, who inspite of the hot weather try to make the children happy.

Yamini came by about 20:40 and met with some of the friends. When she was near me, I went to her and apologized for not attending her call. There was a small misunderstanding between the three of us (Yamini, Radhika and me) and I wanted to get over with it.

We all waited till about 2300 hours and then me and Yamini went together in her car. We talked on the way back about the problem and decided to come early in the morning (8:00 is not early).

Then today morning I woke up on my own (what a great record) and started from home by about 7:45 and reached Vadapalani bus stand and was waiting for some bus to start. Then decided to go by auto to Kasi theatre, where we planned to meet. Then I saw some girl in a saree who was waving her hand towards me. I had seen her somewhere, but couldn't get her name or where immediately.

She: Do you remember me?
Me: Yeah. ECE thaney ?
She: yes. You forgot who I am la?
Me: Yeah.
She: Adappavi. Illanu solluva nu nenachen. Chea

Then I asked her name and she said "Sudha Priya". I said, "Yeah Yeah. Now I remember" (idhuku mela enna nyabagam vendi kedaku? Ellathayum ava kittaye kettachi).

We got an auto and went to Kasi theatre and were standing below the bridge for about 35 - 40 mins for Yamini.
Whenever we called she used to say that she is coming. One such conversation

Me: Hey, enga iruka?
Yamini: Hey, enna kannu theriyalaya? anga thaney iruken. olunga paru?
Me: Ennadhu???? engayumey kanomey. Nee vitla irundhey innum kelambalela?

We were trying to see if there were some other road where she is standing. Then there was no sign of her and I was standing there with Sudha who was constantly speaking about all the stuff about college, her job, me job, her sister's marriage, etc. I was quite amused seeing her talk so much.

Later Yamini came in her car around 8:45 and we all went together and on the way Chitra called me.

Chitra: Hey, engala inga pallavaram laye erakki vittutanga. enna panradhu?
Me: Ha ha. Adutha train Villupuram pogum. Sema kootama irukum. Enjoy

Then realising that we were near airport and that we can pick them up on the way, I asked her to come to Pallavaram bus stand. We all went and got to the marriage hall.

Today too we went to the same place and sat together. Then Pratheema called up and said that she is on her way and asked me to pick her up. I got Ananthu's bike and went off to Chromepet bus stand and came back.

This marriage was quite different from the others I have been to. There were no aiyars, no smoke, no chanting of some manthram (which no one knows the meaning of). There were some political leaders (Periyar's party I guess) who talked about something which no one listened to. After that the bride and groom took a oath and exchanged garlands and the groom just put the thali onto Radhika's neck. It was a different experience and most of us haven't seen marriage like this. We went and gave gifts and ate lunch and was waiting for Radhika to finish with her photo shoot.

All of us were trying very hard to make her smile while posing for the photos and this was the same case with the reception. Then we were all trying to get her tensed by telling "nanga kelambarom". This would lead to a cold stare from her and which would make the photographer angry. Thank god he didn't ask the watchman to throw us out.

Atlast after all the photos, she went off to eat and she asked me to wait. Since everyone were leaving, I too came with them. We (Pratheema, Sudha Priya, me) got into Yamini's car and came back to Vadapalani. The journey was so tiring because of the heat and Sudha and me got down and went and drank some Frooti in McRennet.

After that we got into a share auto to Saligramam and I came back home with a very bad headache. After the bath I tried to see Prison Break Season 2 Ep.07, but couldn't. So I just slept there and woke up by 6:30.

For the past two days I was very happy and saw lots of old friends. I even got a new friend - Sudha Priya. The one thing that I like about her is that she began speaking non stop(kadhu valikuthu) with me the minute I saw and didn't stop (even though I didnt speak much). One should be really talented to talk like that.

Anyway, it was a nice experience and I wish Radhika all the very best for her married life. Its great to have her as my best friend.

No Hair wash experiment - Season 2

2008-05-04T07:11:37Z

You may all know that I did an (very unsuccessful) experiment where I stopped using any shampoo on my hair. It ended in just 2 days. Last week after getting a haircut, I decided to start the experiment again. So, I used shampoo on monday (28th Apr) morning and then I just used plain water to wash my hair. This went on till Saturday (3rd May) morning when I had to use shampoo as my mom applied some stuff on my hair to change its color. This is the longest streak (5 days) of me not using shampoo. I think I will again restart this experiment from tomorrow.

Dianna? Director of Orkut?

2007-12-04T17:04:57Z

I usually dont get scraps. But got 4 scraps - with the same contents.

HEY ITS DIANNA, FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ORKUT,EVERYBODY SORRY FOR THEINTERRUPTION BUT ORKUT IS CLOSING THE SYSTEM DOWN BECAUSE TOO MANY BOTTERS ARE TAKING UP ALL THE NAMES, WE ONLY HAVE 57 NAMES LEFT,
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT, DONT SEND THIS MESSAGE, IF YOU WANT
TOKEEP YOUR ACCOUNT ,SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE, YOU'LL BE SORRY IF YOU DONT SEND IT. THANKS DIRECTOR OFORKUT, TIM BUISKI. WHOEVER DOESNT SEND THIS MESSAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILLBEDEACTIVATED AND IT WILL COST YOU $ 10.00 A MONTH TO USE IT..

Time vs Attachment

2007-11-27T18:03:18Z

The more time you spend with something, the more attached you become to it.

Thursday or friday?

2007-09-14T04:11:21Z

Today while riding to the train station venkat asked whether today is thursday or friday? I too didnt know wat day of the week it is. Then i remembered that yesterday i didnt read xkcd and found that today is friday.

What do I need from a blog client?

2007-08-25T19:03:05Z

It was interesting to see that I have been posting to this blog through so many clog clients. I have tried the normal web based interface, flock, emacs, through my mobile. There are so many more clients but I still cant find a really good client. What do I expect from a blog client? Hmm. Sometimes I ask myself such questions.

Post from mobile

2007-08-25T17:38:58Z

This is a test post from my Nokia 6300. I atlast got gprs activated on my hutch phone after 4 weeks.

SPIN

2007-04-29T16:58:23Z

Happy

2007-04-24T17:26:29Z

Very happy

Lover chooses education

2007-04-10T18:06:59Z

Last week my friend asked me about the availability of B.Arch course in various engineering colleges for relative. I was puzzled. Why would a girl take Architecture? I asked "Is she very much interested in building and architecture?". The reply I got was "No, her lover asked her to take it". This is the first time I had received such a reply.

I have heard of many reasons - like parents' pressure, peer pressure, teacher's suggestions. But choosing your profession because your lover said so? I wonder what would be next - Your lover choosing your life partner?

svn revert

2007-04-03T16:13:37Z

Wish I could do a svn revert life.

Orkut - The new birthday reminder website

2007-04-01T12:25:19Z

I thought of trying a simple experiment on orkut. I decided to change my birthday to April 1 and see what happens. As of now, there are about 13 scraps from 102 friends. Also 3 of my friends wished me through IM or text message. Though this experiment may sound foolish, this shows how people have become dependent on technology. This also shows how a really good company should develop their products. There are people who can't live without Orkut. They believe everything that they see on orkut. Many relationships have been formed and many destroyed.

Is it a healthy sign?

PS: I am really sorry if this joke harmed you in any way. My real birthday is 23 days from now. I hope that all my friends give me real gifts instead of just scraps. ;)

Why should I fill a slam book?

2007-03-28T18:18:46Z

I am finally going out of college and it is the time of the year when your friends give you slam books to fill. There are two types of slam books.

Type 1: Is of the type which has typed questions which are to be filled out by the person. These contain all sort of questions like "what is your hobby, what is your aim in life, what would you want your dream house to be built of, what would you do if you become rich, etc".

Type 2: This book is an empty notebook in which you can fill in whatever you want. Take the word "whatever" with a pinch of salt. You have to provide your address, contact details, etc. Also write something about your friend.

Type 1 books are totally useless. It contains questions which some third person had written and you just have to fill in the required blanks. Since you are my friend, you should be knowing those things yourself. If you aren't that close to me, what is the use of answering those questions? Will you build my dream house? or will you give make me rich if I tell you what I will do with it? Then what is the use of such questions?

Type 2 books is total bull shit. Since the book is just an empty notebook, you can fill in with anything you want. But you are expected to fill in things that you actually don't want to. You have to write good things like "you are a charming, friendly, intelligent, jovial person". Actually the content typed in goes on for pages. I have seen some of my friends who have wasted/used up an entire hour for filling it.

Even if you try to write something different, or try to subtly tease the person, you are seen as someone who has no sentiments and doesn't know about friendship. Is friendship all about lying about your friend? Is it all about writing things that you don't even feel about that person?

Some people may argue that they only write what they really feel for their friend. Great. I am bad at writing such stuff. According to me, those people are living in a dream. Thinking that a person will only write true things in their slam book... definitely impossible.

I began to realise these things from my slam book from my school. I had my friends write so many nice things about me, which I didn't know I had. ;) Now that slam book is collecting dust in the bottom of my shelf.

Another reason why I hate slam books in college is the amount of work and dedication that goes into writing that entry. Everyone is so much engrossed into it that they can't see what is going on in the class.

I give such kind of attention only when coding. Coming to coding, it is interesting to note that out of ~23 teams in my class only 2 teams(can be one or two more) have really done their project on their own. All the others have just bought their projects from consultancies aka companies.

Each project approximately costs Rs.5000 for a person amounting to Rs.20000. What is the use of buying a project and submitting for your disertation? What do you gain from it? You have learnt so much for 4 years. Can't you apply those skills? Is it really that difficult to think of a real life problem, analyse it and find a solution to it? If you can't do a small final year project by yourself, then it is impossible for you to be successful anywhere you go.

If the efforts for writing a slam book are properly channelised, everyone can do their own projects. If I say this, the reply I get "we aren't talented like you". It is just denial to agree to the fact. You know that what you do is wrong. But you can't agree.

I have now decided that I will never fill in another slam book. For all those who ask me to fill in a slam my reply is the same reply you give for the project.

"Just like you are incapable of doing your project on your own, I am in incapable of filling your slam book with bull shit. You have so many people who can write pages of this BS. Please contact them."

PS: If you want just my address and contact details, there are other means to obtain them.