astatine19

iPhone price announced. WHAAA???????

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:28:00 +0000

iPhone. 3G. Vodafone. 8GB - Rs. 31000, 16GB - Rs. 361000. What the hell??? Is Apple / Vodafone mad?? (They probably are..) Now, I have been seriously been waiting for the iPhone for over 6 months, but I might even just reconsider my decision. I mean, even without the subsidy (i.e. carrier unlocked), the iPhone is not expected to cost more than $600 (Rs. 24000) and now, they are charging over $800 WITH a carrier contract! This is SO unfair! SIOOMA to you Apple!!!!!!

Divinity upon Earth

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Rejoice, O mortals!

For Jesus sends a divine thing!

Joy blooms within like petals

Of a flower in vivid spring.

Oh! What beauty I behold!

Earth hath not seen before

Into it's world it doth enfold

Fools who heed the tales of yore.

No! I must resist

The temptaions galore.

Though dream I must day and night

Of the enlightenment in store.

Oh Lord! I plead and bow,

Do not torture me so!

Grant my wish upon my brow

I desire the iPhone. Lo!

My wish is granted,

We are truly blessed!

Jesus smiles upon us,

I, you, and all the rest.

The wait has ended,

The journey concluded;

Years and months of pain,

Bear fruit in our stead

The iPhone descends amongst us.

We attain nirvana again!

Just an impromptu poem I wrote yesterday...

Arindam Chaudhuri, for once, makes some sense

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:29:00 +0000

If you read the news carefully on a daily basis, then more often than not, you'll see a huge ad, boldly telling you to "dare to think beyond the IIMs." Which of course, is nonsense if your search is limited to India. For the uninitiated, the ad is for The Indian Institute of Planning and Management. This institute is managed by Arindam Chaudhuri, whose name besides being quite a mouthful, is well known inside management circles. He describes himself as thus:

Noted economist & management guru Professor Arindam Chaudhuri is an eminent author, an authoritative speaker & a transformational leader. He has been conferred upon with ‘Management Guru 2000’ award, ‘Personality of the Decade’ award, ‘Example to Youth’ award & many more... He also happens to be a film maker.

Excellent profile, except that the institute he manages is, as I personally feel, crap. And so are his writings. The English he uses is nice, but I don't feel the same about the content. But, for once in his life, he has made some sense. Here's a piece of his writing as it appeared in an ad in today's (10th July, 2008) Times of India:

The ad again begins with the laughable title "Dare to think beyond the IITs!" This caught my interest, as I, now, happen to be an IITian. Here's what the pony tailed guy wrote:

"One of the biggest problems facing the India Education system is the lack of clarity amongst students in India, which leads to a humongous wastage of our nation's resources. Bowing down to unnecessary family pressures, students in India mostly don't try to think what they want in life. Thus, for example a major trend is to mindlessly start preparations for IIT entrance examinations, often as early as in class IXth at the cost of undertaking other productive activities; in fact activities around which they could have actually built their passions. Resultantly, two categories of students emerge. one, who don't make it to the IITs, and think it's almost the end of the world for them though nothing can be more ridiculous than that. And second, those who get through! This second category is a more interesting case study of the magnanimous wastage of the country's resources. Every IIT student's education is subsidised by lacs of rupees by the state with an obvious hope that they, being engineering resources, will give back to their nation their engineering prowess. However, a huge proportion o them are later found taking admissions in various MBA courses around the globe. Nothing can be more unfortunate and a bigger waste of the nation's resources. The apparent justification is that engineering and MBA make a better combination. Nothing can be a bigger myth or further away from truth. By the time students pass out of an MBA course, in any case, they don't remember much of what they learnt in engineering; and their typical post-MBA career preferences like investment banking, human resources, etc. clearly reveal that after being exposed to the dynamic and glamorous world of management education, rarely does a student ever want a career that has anything to do with his past engineering education.

I advise all students to follow their passions and to do what they will enjoy doing and 'want to do in life.' If your ultimate aim is to study management, then plan early, save a few important years of life, enjoy life more and in the process help the nation save on some of its important resources!! Be brave, BE FREE OF ANY COMPLEXES, think ahead and get the education that you will enjoy... because success comes to those who chase their passions... passionately!!!"
Arindam Chaudhari, author of the best seller
'The Great Indian Dream'

Now, this post smacks the stupidity and bashfulness that only He, the great Arindam Chaudhari, is capable of. I could rag at him endlessly for the absurd things he has written, like "they being engineering resources" (they are people, not resources, you insensitive management fellow!) and "glamorous dynamic world of management' (Ha ha, very funny. Glamorous? You mean Page 3? Sure, your ponytail is quite fashionable! And dynamic? Huh, and I thought technology is ever changing, while management is still run on the old-school principles). But I digress. Beneath all the rubbish, there is a fleck of gold. The man has raised a point which was on my mind too, which is weird since I absolutely hate him. But this time, he's said what I've always wanted to say. Too many students have I seen who are studying for engineering, IIT; have succeeded too, but still have no idea why they are doing so. Their choice of courses are even more disturbing. There has been a gold rush lately for Computer Science seats - merely because it's a "high-paying occupation in demand." Absolutely crap. The software industry is in a decline due to lack of new avenues. Due to the recession, venture capital has dried up and no new start-ups are to be seen. The start-ups of the past have failed to deliver. Take Facebook, Google, etc. (Yeah, Google is going to sink badly since it's only major source of income is ads, which is bad when you're in a recession) And most students have no idea about what they are taking, it's just the "scope and starting salary" that is on every body's mind. Today, few people take up engineering for their passion or interest. Which is a sad state really. And then they realize that this isn't what they wanted and go to the IIMs or something similar and take up a management-based career, resulting in a waste of an IIT seat and much of the nation's resources. My plea to all those students out there who are planning to join IIT: Stop and think about what you really want; what you would really enjoy doing as a profession. Don't worry about the money or scope. All professions are equal in this world. If you're doing what you really like, then the passion will be automatically reflected in your work and people will reward you for that.

P.S.: That article by Arindam Chaudhari had no copyright sign on it, so I copied it verbatim from the newspaper. I wouldn't dare to claim something as hideous as that as my own; doing so is far beneath my dignity!

Code 1 Error: Jerry Yang too busy dodging Microsoft and cuddling up to Google; customers are adviced to "go to hell"

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:43:00 +0000

If your business depends a lot on e-mail, and if you have a mailbox in Yahoo, whether paid or not, be afraid. Be very afraid. Code 1 has struck. (again...? I think not!)

Many people using Yahoo's mail service have been having difficulties accessing their mail accounts. The error they receive calls it a cryptic "Code 1 Error" as shown below:

As the image above clearly states, the problem is a "temporary" one, and if we are reading this, troubleshooters at Yahoo! are already solving the problem. Yeah, right. 2 months is "temporary". I did report the error to Yahoo two months ago, but there hasn't been any resolution of it yet.

I decided to surf the net, to see what the community has to say to this, if at all I'm not the only one. Turns out I was right - I'm not the only one. Many people are facing the same glitch, though Yahoo's customer base is so large that the number is relatively insignificant, as per this blog. Funny thing is, they don't even want to tell what Code 1 Error means, or what the glitch really is. After the representatives were contacted regarding the same problem faced by one Mr. Clifford Tong, of Lafayette, California, they denied it being a large-scale issue, and that Yahoo had not witnessed an "unusual spike in inquiries to our customer care department." Moot point is that Mr. Tong was a paid customer, and still they didn't pay heed to his complaint. Funnily enough, his account started working fine a few hours after the interview with the representatives. Coincidence? I think not.

I was lucky. My e-mail is based on Gmail, I use Yahoo only for messaging, which, funnily enough, works perfectly fine. So I feel sorry for any dude who's entire life - his company, or job, is based on e-mails and he happens to be unlucky enough to be using Yahoo! mail and has got locked out of his account. My advice: ditch Yahoo. I won't advice what to take instead. Gmail isn't the proverbial saint either. Every time I try to verify my Gmail address in Yahoo, the confirmation mail never arrives in my Gmail inbox. Not even in the spam folder! I wonder if this is a glitch, or something else...

The i

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:21:00 +0000

Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, is well known for his charisma. Part of the hype-building process of Apple is its tendency to launch major products at events like the recently-concluded WWDC, where it launched the 3G iPhone. Point of interest here happens to be Steve's keynote. Here's what a keynote would look like if Steve were to launch a mysterious new product - the i. Check out the video here.

3G iPhone Officially Confirmed

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:39:00 +0000

As of writing this post, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple is announcing the launch of their latest product - the iPhone 3G. Features announced so far include, of course, 3G, inbuilt GPS, a flush headphone jack as opposed to the recessed one in the original iPhone, improved battery life, a gorgeous black plastic black and a slimmer profile at the edges. The 3.5" screen and camera remain the same - a bit of disappointment for users looking for an upgrade from the 2 MP camera found on the original iPhone. Apple also claims the iPhone 3G will be more affordable and available in a larger number of countries, besides sporting enterprise support and support for third-party applications. More details as the presentation goes on, see the live update.

Price check: the prices have been officially declared, it will be $199 for the 8GB black version, while the 16GB version will set you back by $399, and will be in white(!)

Not Always Right

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:41:00 +0000

Some of you may have read Chetan Bhagat's novel, One Night @ A Call Center. Something that I really liked about the novel was the funny customer complaints that the protagonist's team would receive. Of course, they were not real, and few would believe Americans to be so dumb. I wouldn't be too sure about that after reading this. An excerpt from this hilarious website:

Nonsensical Hypotheticals, Part 2
Hotel | Boulder, CO, USA

Hotel guest: “Is there a way to take the phone off the hook so that it doesn’t ring?”

Me: “Well, you could always…take the phone off the hook, so that it doesn’t ring. But yes, I can put the phone on a do not disturb, so that you won’t get any calls.”

Hotel guest: “I want to take a half hour nap, so I don’t want the phone to ring. But I want to be able to get calls later.”

Me: “I understand, sir, I’ll be sure not to transfer any calls to your room for the next half hour.”

Hotel guest: “But what if one of the people in my group wants to reach me?”

Me: “…Would you like me to only allow calls from inside the hotel?”

Hotel guest: “No, I want to take a nap.”

Me: “So you want me to make sure that you don’t get any calls for the next half hour, but if anyone calls, you want them to be able to reach you?”

Hotel guest: *confused* “Yes.”

Me: “I understand, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

Related:
Nonsensical Hypotheticals

Spammer offers to upgrade my non-existent iPhone, acquires a mean customer

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:16:00 +0000

All my close friends who have been in contact with me recently will know about the frustration in me over my dyslexic Nokia 6600, and my constant desire to acquire the Jesus-phone, better known to the world as the iPhone. Now, India does not have a large community of iPhone users, or in fact, people who are even scarcely interested in it (I have seen only one iPhone till now - on my recent trip to Rajasthan). Hence, to kick-start things, I started a community on orkut - iPhone India. That however, got a particular spammer a new target - for he claims to unlock PSPs and iPhones. So he made a simple offer to me on my orkut scrapbook:

hey astatine19
I see you own an iphone. Dude if you want to upgrade your phone to the latest 1.1.4 then let me know. the new things in the update are;
1) more sleek and classy look,
2) better battrey life,
3) increased call volume
4) increased speaker volume
5) tons of free applications/GAMES and better support'
. AND ITS TOTALLY SAFE !

all your contacts and evythin will get backed up just like before. so lemme knw if you want to.
im based in bombay.
CALL ME ON 9833849929. Charges-- DAMN CHEAPP !!!
regards
Reza

Now, generally, I treat such scraps with the only hospitality they truly deserve - the delete button. But this was different. He knew my name, so it wasn't a spam-bot; he had personally sent out the message! Such hard work must be rewarded. So I sent out to him a hard-earned well-deserved reply:

heh, dude, im not dumb enuf to buy a grey market iphone - im waiting for the launch of the original iphone in india. with that i will get

1] A sleeker look than u can ever give
2] How the hell will you increase the battery life? ripping it apart and putting in a nokia battery?
3] Increased volume? U wanna blast my ears or wat?
4] Increased speaker volume?? Then for wat do i use my 280 W 5.1 surround sound speakers? Ringtones/??
5] Better support? U mean u'll replace the mac OS with some crappy linux shit??
TOTALLY SAFE?? U mean it has the potential to screw things up??
All contact and stuff backed up... Temme, if u're changing everything, how cum the old contact will be compatible with the new ones??
BTW, it's Mumbai. Get your geography right.
Thanks for the no. I was looking for some numbers to sell to spammers.
Charges - well.. lets see, ya, damn cheap to ruin an iphone. Might as well throw it out the window
Oh yeah, i forgot the 3g and GPS. No possibility u can put that in na??? Maybe apple's gonna do it soon.. Maybe on 9th June. Dont read the news, do ya???
Dude, I woulnt buy an iphone if i wanted to make it a crap-o-machine full of junk. If I wanted that, I'd buy some stupid nokia nseries.

Hey wait a min.. I don't HAVE an iPhone, then why am i writing this.. whoops sorry.

And congrats, your post is soo good, I might just put it up in my blog for everyone to see!! Free publicity for you. Great na??

My regards dude!! Peace out. Bokay?
astatine19

The guy must be really excited to start a positive business relationship.

P.S.: Now, I know this post will offend some Nokia N-series users or Linux users or maybe somebody else. To them, my message is: Sorry dude, can't help it. These are my opinions I'm voicing (or rather, typing) here. If you don't like 'em, don't read 'em. Awwright??

Khushman Speaks

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:17:00 +0000

Recently, I told my friend that I was about to put up another post on my blog. He asked,

"Why? It's already dead! Why are you reviving it??"

I said, "Dude, who said it's dead??"

Now, I may seem to be sloppish and lazy, but that does not, in any way, mean that this blog's dead. Nope. Bokay?

Anyways, since his blog's dead, I'll be posting here a masterpiece of his writing. It all happened when he refused to tell me the meaning of some code (he has still not obliged!) and I threatened him with my displeasure - that got his creative juices flowing. Enjoy!

astatine19: whats 4588774925??

Khushman: That's like I said earlier(not to you in particular) known only to those to whom i've taught that particular algorithm or shared that 'secret' code and have such 'advanced' knowledge....lol sorry dude. And what's this mood interlude thingy?? You know I don't have the bandwidth to open it.

He uses his cell to access the net, hence the limited bandwidth.

astatine19: either do i. and dont u run around circles. tell me... or suffer my displeasure

Khushman: What does the 'my displeasure' package you offer include?? Does it include a tour of the grand canyon of blood?? Of the devil's drama?? Of hell's holes?? Of fiery fowls?? And last but not the least(I hope), it offers a personal massage from satan with boiling oil doesn't it?? I'll only take it if it offers the above features, plus I want a 20% discount on the tour price because i'm an old customer of your pleasure and annoyance. Those were fun trips so I hope you haven't gone down on the quality of your trips. Looking forward to a reply -Fake Jesus Christ

Khushman: Btw, I forgot the last line. I respect the place where your annoyance and my pleasure meet. Namaste.

He's a big fan of Fake Steve Jobs, and so am I.

astatine19: Namaste. We'll be honoured to have you as our esteemed guest. I shall get our special suite ready for you. Enjoy your... visit

astatine19: watever. wat does that number mean??

Khushman: Hmmm....hey dude, the text's not complete. Tell me a good place to post the entire thing. No not email, that won't work. Something else.

astatine19: i dont wanna read it! just temme the meaning of that number. and dont change the topic!

Khushman: Dude, it took me 2hrs to write it. So tell me a place to post it.

astatine19: facebook. 2 hours?? dont u have anything better to do???

He's an IIT student, so it's necessary for him to have something better to do. Umm, something like studying.

Khushman: And why do you wanna know what that that number means??

astatine19: coz i've been seeing it a lot and i wanna know wat it means! simple. plain curiosity. there u go. now temme

Khushman: Whaddya mean seeing it a lot?? You can only have seen that in 2 places. Orkut and facebook

Thus concluded our "orkut chatting." Soon afterwards, I received a mail from him in Facebook. I recognized it as a masterpiece as soon as I read it; and after receiving his consent, am proud to post it here:

Thank you, i'm looking forward to my trip. It's gonna be a fun holiday!! Hope you will be my guide as I haven't been to anything as thrilling as Your Displeasure. Your Annoyance was fun but then Displeasure has always been more fun than Annoyance, in most cases. It will also be a pleasure to meet my blood-brother, Devil. It's been so long since we've met(Last time we met was to discuss the possibility of an advertising campaign for good deeds on earth financed by him. It was a total failure, with a fullon quarrel).I do love him for his growing popularity. Ok, not really. As he's taking my ex-followers in his fold. I'll have to enact revenge and am planning an ambush on him. I'm in contact with a well-known cracker(The pope's robe's just a disguise. You should see his MacBook Air under his robes. It's truly skilful the way he hides it) and he says he's got the devil's OS all figured out, and also found out a few vulnerabilities which will allow me to preach on his own emergency channel. I'm planning to record the meaningless ramblings of our best(i.e. most boring) priest, known for his remarkable efficiency (in putting people to sleep). This will get him and all his followers to a coma-like unconscious state in mere minutes, and that's when i'll call on my followers, who'll come in my great vehicles(Noah's Ark, my walking stick, also a new Tata Nano which is all we can afford because of absmally low donations) as they're too old to walk. Then I plan to convert most of their population to mine with ournewly stolen 'Mind Disillusioner'(it says on the package that it's made by 666Ltd., Demonic Industrial Estate, hmmm...wonder what that means). Then they'll all be under my command and we'll make the world the beautiful place called paradise. There'll be preachers everywhere, no intimacy will be allowed, sex and booze will be banned, my word shall be law!! The 7 deadly sins will not occur, alongwith some new sins that my counterparts on earth have cooked up. Also, women and men will have no free rights(except for some chosen ones, like my personal chaffeur). They shall have to wear clothes that cover ALL of their bodies, excluding their face. Granted that there shall be no love, but there shall also be no hatred, and cummon, i'll rule everyone. Yeah!! Beautiful birds will roam the earth and flowers will fragrate the place. I'll have a majestic palace(built on rock, mind you) and my enemies will have huts on sand. Movies will have working censor boards which will censor anything that makes my brother look good in anyway. Instead of songs which nobody listens to, it shall have my personal recording which will tell them to do good deeds. The intermission will have my 10 commandments repeated over and over again till all of them have it in their blood. Couples will not be allowed to go(or form, for that matter). Male and female cinema will be different. We shall take strict action against anyone breaking this law. They will have to leave paradise and go to the deep deep lava lake where the warmth will cool and cleanse them. Women will be conscripted to the Angelic Virgin Force, a special division to sing to me and fan me, and in case anybody's having a lil' too much problems, to lure them to my rehab center. There will be none of the blasphemy called coitus by my inferiors. Instead we will have big huge sperm banks, where we will also inject the fairer gender, and make them suffer during labour by banning all forms of anasthesia, for it is my will that they suffer for doing the world so much good. Children will be taken away at birth and be flash-transferred with songs in my glory, and exaggerated stories talking about my achievements, especially the conquest of Hell. Some of them which have super genes(i.e. My blessings) will form an elite strike team called Spartans which will do my bidding and occasionally when i'm in the mood, hunt some deer for me. I shall form a special haz-mat team which will purify hell. They shall have super-effective ramblings from my second-in-command(the original guy who recorded his preachings) so that they do not get infected. For my dear brother, I got a REALLY good surprise cooked up. I'm gonna make him a cosmic hate figure and have hate week, and many other such ceremonies to cleanse him. It's gonna last 1984years and he'll hopefully be a changed man till then because nobody'll like him then. Also he'll be thrown in the worst dungeons I have and i'll bloaten him to such an extent that nobody'll believe that he's the same devil. He'll also have to give up his trident which will be given to my personal bodyguard. Haha he's gonna love every moment of it(I'm jesus. I can't punish him too harshly). And to those damn atheists who don't seem to believe in me, i'll just show them how I won't drown in the dead sea. Of course I wrote the bible so all of those experiences never occured, still it doesn't matter, does it?? Man needs to be in awe of me. And then I and my fellow beings shall live happily ever after, in a state of nirvana in paradise. Now back to reality. So on which days is your esteemed organisation free, specifically when are you, the honourable manager free?? I have a quite packed schedule, as I have shown you above, because I have to plan and coordinate everything. I hope you are free for me, as your facebook status states and be kind enough to accompany me along what promises to be a really enjoyable tour. Yours lovingly, Fake Jesus Christ(Future Fuhrer)

I must say, the guy has it in him for writing.

P.S.: For all those Christian out there offended by this post, I am not responsible for it's contents. Neither do I endorse or condemn any views. If you don't like - don't read it, for I'm invoking my Freedom Of Speech. For those who still insist on preaching me about respect for other people's religion, please save your breath. This is meant to be humour. Those who still don't get it, I have just one word for them: Siooma. Figure out what it means. All the necessary material and hyper links are available within this post. Happy hunting!

The India of the New Millenium

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Cheer up my son, buck up my boy,
You are living in 'The Land of Joy'. You go to
school where they do not teach,
In the House of God, they hatred preach. If you
have merit, you will sigh and sob,
If you are backward, you might get a job. Out of
caste, if you dare to wed,
Your kith and kin will chop your head. If you are
honest, in north or in south,
You will live from hand to mouth. If you
are wily and your means sinister,
You are likely to become a chief minister. But
remember the new maxim, my lad,
Defection is good, conversion is bad.

Many Thanks to my friend Ayush for giving me this gem. There was a footnote along with it: Contributed by G.C. Bhandari, Meerut. Great work, buddy! You truly echo my sentiments.

JEE, AIEEE, and a whole bunch of 'E's.

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:42:00 +0000

This Sunday marked an important event in the lives of many students in India, for the All India Engineering / Architecture Entrance Examination (AIEEE) was held nationwide. The exam consists of a three-hour paper that "tests the student's analytical and quantitative abilities" or something like that. There were 105 questions in all, divided into three sections - Physics, Maths and Chemistry. The exam, though not as prestigious as JEE, holds more importance than the Joint Entrance Examination. To understand this, we need to take a look at the education system.

Undergraduate engineering in India is taught by colleges that are divided into roughly a three-tier system:

1. The IITs.
2. Colleges granting admission on the basis of AIEEE, and BITS (Birla Institute of Technology and Science).
3. Colleges granting admission on the basis of State level exams i.e. CETs (Common Entrance Tests)

While the first category is well defined, there is no clear demarcation between the other two. The IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) are the elite institutes for only the very best of students. These students are selected on the basis of JEE (Joint Entrance Examination), probably the toughest undergraduate examination in the world. Out of the 3 lakh, 20 thousand students that gave this exam this year, probably only a few five thousand or more will earn the honour to call themselves an IITian (and I hope to count myself as one of them). The JEE is much more difficult than AIEEE, but however holds less importance. This is because while JEE affects the lives of a few students (as most of them are fully aware that they will not make it anyways), the hopes of all the remaining students lie with AIEEE, for this exam is their ticket to the future.

But this year, the ticket that was issued was soiled.

The AIEEE is conducted by the CBSE board, which is run by the government. And none of the government institutions are known for their efficiency or care or dedication. The first goof-up occurred when students were alloted centres for their exams halfway across the country, in remote places they hadn't even heard of. Secondly, the admit cards arrived very late. All this just a week or two before exams. And being the time of summer, trains were jam-packed, and no form of transportation was available.

Now, I wasn't affected. Having given the JEE before, I am well confident that I shall be selected for the IITs. But for the student whose sole refuge was AIEEE, it was a disaster. Many were unable to make it to the centre, ruining a year of their life, and probably their career. Luckily, my centre was not too far off, so I had no pressure to handle. However, my friend missed out on the exam.

OK, now, enough bashing. Now that the exams are over (save for BITSAT), it's all a matter of results. Seats and courses shall be alloted to students on the basis of their All India Rank (AIR).

And therein lies the great fault with The Great Indian Engineering Drama, and therein lies the crux of this post.

The course that you get, the institute that you get; everything is determined by your performance in a single exam on general engineering. While it is perfectly acceptable that only the best students should get the best institute on the basis of merit (Which reminds me of reservations! Maybe next post...), I am not so sure about the course part. Let me explain with an example:

Let us consider a student, say X. He scores the 13th AIR, a very prestigious rank. At such a high level, he has the world at his feet; any institute or course is available to him. He, however, has no idea which course to take, for he does not know what interests him! Now, some courses, like Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, etc. are considered to be the elite courses (since they make you eligible for high-paying jobs). So X takes Computer Science, the very best course in the best institute, even though he doesn't know the difference between hardware and software. Now consider Mr. Y, who got not a very good rank, and missed out on the best course. He cannot take Computer Science, even though he is a wizard at computers. So he goes on to study a course he's least interested in. Even at the institute, he's considered a computer wizard, but alas! Finally, the pressure takes a toll on him, and he commits suicide.

A gruesome example, I admit; but it is, shockingly, a true incident which occurred at IIT-Powai.

Thus lies the problem in the ranking system. The exam only tests your ability in Maths, Physics and Chemistry. It cannot evaluate your aptitude in the particular course you desire to take, and no effort has been made to overcome this shortcoming. Even though the IIT authorities promised some "improvements" to the system, there is yet any action to be taken. Perhaps the incident has just faded from the memory of the public; as the memory of the general public is very alarmingly short - evident by the same promises made again and again during every election. But I digress. A dig at politicians deserves it's own post.

I have given the entrance exam. I have extremely high aptitude and interest in computers. But will I be able to beat the system and get that coveted course of Computer Science reserved for a few, who probably don't deserve it? This is a personal battle! Stay tuned for more info.

Hello!!!

noreply@blogger.com (astatine19) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:22:00 +0000

First of all, don't ask me why I'm writing this. I just am. Just as the sun sets in the east and rises in the west (or is it the other way around?), oppositely charged particles attract, and all matter has wave particle duality, I am writing this blog. I just am. Take it as an axiom. Period.

Now, the question arises, for whom; for which I do have an answer. For myself. It is said that bodies (or in technical terms, systems) with higher energies are unstable. And in my case, my energy source of writing is overflowing, and I need to stabilize it. (Alright, I admit, I need a place to vent. Happy?)

Now, again, another question. Who am I? No, not the profile on the right. That's just a description of me; like a description of a product on Amazon. And most of the people lie there. You get to know their true personalities from the matter they write. And judging from the stuff you've just read above, you take me to be a physics-geek or something. Partly correct. I am a to-be engineering student from India, the land of spices, IIT, and the most corrupt government I've ever had the misfortune to hear about, let alone be governed by. But I digress. I won't be starting that topic now, it merits it's own post. After all, this is a rambling rant blog, eh? Oh wait, didn't I tell you that before? Sorry. What I post here are purely my personal opinions, unless specified. That's what you get - an opinionated blog. But as I have found out, my opinions are generally good, thanks to a healthy modicum of rational thinking and common sense. Come here if you're unable to decide on a good topic - and I'll show you a way; the only way - MY way. Just joking, my friends.

I would like to dedicate this blog to my friend Khushman, whose inspiration and hardwork led me to starting this blog (how can I sit idle while a guy lazier than me writes a blog? Impossible). Visit his blog. Also, my sister, under whose constant torture I have become virtually battle-ready all the time.

I shall conclude here. Do come back for more hard-hitting rants from me!