Saturday, December 31

The Year's Last Post

Well People... back after a long time..... and just in time too.. still a minute left for the year to end... will more than make up for it in the next year...
Here is wishing you all Happy New Year, at extremely short notice...
take care and sleep well...
coz next year , its gonna be one helluva ride.
ciao

Comet Nosce

Wednesday, December 28

Update 5.12.2

Hellos to all of u...
Was my previous post too long ? well... I had had quite a bit of news to share with u ppl that time... and what with my dramatic way of presenting stuff... I generally tend to consume a few more bytes than absolutely necessary... So. There you are. you don't want to read a long post, don't read it. I ain't going to change my style. After all... I've gotted free 24x7 net connectivity at home... I'll take all the time in the world to post...

ppl have been asking what Drishtant is... so here goes...
IEE Student's Chapter (BIT,Mesra) proudly presents BIT's very own techfest... Drishtant 2006. Sponsored by Infosys, Satyam, Accenture, Dainik Jagran etc, Drishtant is in amny ways a big step forward for organising events free from the administration's mismanagement and undue interference. For more details please visit http://www.drishtant.net/
what makes Drishtant unique is that it has got a 2 Robotics events, where the participating robots will have a common 'goal'. Pun intended. All this while, robotics meant presenting a structure with a couple of motors thrown in, without sense or purpose. Of course, quite a few genuine robots - ones that actually made sense - were presented, but the fact remained that most of them were leftovers of some other competition/project/model-making contest. Now, Drishtant is actually providing us with an impetus to plan,project and build robots.
And before Drishtant, we're going to have the Robolabs workshop... exciting times ahead...
(Mritunjay bhaiyya is EEE 2k2. His knowledge in Elec is second to none...)

I couldn't start "One night at a call centre"... my friends told me that the bok was shit... So I read Robert Ludlum instead. Try out the following books:
The Bourne Identity,
The Bourne Supremacy,
The Bourne Ultimatum - all 3 by Robert Ludlum.
The books are good... far better than the movies....
I heard that a fourth part in the Bourne series has been released... Haven't got around to reading it though.

See...?
I've kept it short this time...
Adios...

-ONE

Saturday, December 24

Update 5.12.1

Hello ppl...
I'm back...
these bloody winters get to me... damn cold at my place... had to put up with a lot of wind and rain... not to mention the insects...
So.. what have all you been upto? looks like this winter not many mails are flying... my inbox looks very empty... no news of friends and acquaintances alike...
and news is trickling in very feebly.....

Team 007.. well.. the trio solved 4 out of 8 ACM problems as i've posted before.. 23rd.. hmm.. not bad.. but then.. if you check up the stats... http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/regionals/ViewRegionalStandings.asp?ContestID=730 , well.. it just goes to show that practice and preparation pays off... who knows... next time maybe they'll beat the daylights out of other teams, with just a bit more dedicated effort - which wasn't quite there, what with the end sems and all....
this is a message for all coders from 'Team 007': "Practice. Pay attention to even small details. The best coder is not the one who knows the most, but is the one who uses his knowledge the best."
Hope to have more participation from BIT in the future ICPCs.. surely the ACM chapter will work towards that end...

The Robolabs prep is going really well.. well placed sources have expressed the following views...
".. abe. it is sexy. ..."
".. the Atmel microcontroller is powerful, boss. line-follower robot aaram se ban sakta hai... aur autonomous bots bhi ..."
".. bhayanak.. Kshitij ke liye sahi prep hoga.. oof.. god type hai..."
Hats off to Siddharth Priya and Suchintya again... not to forget Mrityunjay bhaiyya...

Heard that polls have taken place in Iraq... good.. even in all the gloom around the world.. some people do find out time for acting out a comedy...
and India's won the test series against Lankans.. moved to Rank 2 in the ICC Test ratings... obvious ain't it ? I mean, no jayasurya, no vaas... what did the lankans want ? 3 innings defeats in 3 matches ?

A team of S.R.K.Raman (Rawman), Aniruddh (Nishu), and Mallikarjun Deo went to Kolkata fro the Campus Rock Idols...unfortunately they didn't make it past the first round.. No Sweat guys.. At least the effort was there.. I'm sure you'll all do much better next time...
Ppl.. there's got to be some serious work to be done in the area of extra-curriculars... I mean, not just guitaring, bot building or coding.. but things like gaming - your everyday NFS Underground, AOE/AOK/AOM - should be taken care of...
True, we do it for fun.. but has anyone of you given even a moment's thought of the talent out there on campus? There are a couple of AOK players who can give 'The Sheriff' (one of the best players in the world) a run for his money... "and what are we supposed to do?" you may ask... Encourage them... Organise contests... not just racing games like NFS or something else, but also strategy games... scripting games...
Remember.. if you pay a little bit of attention, you may well excel at what you consider to be fun... As far as i can remember, Raman started playing the guitar just out of curiosity.. look where he's now.. not even 2 years, and he's playing as well as, if not better than, 5 year veterans like Mallikarjun...
And here's a bit more trivia: Suchintya started solving ACM problems only after his second year.. and today he's ranked 3087... worldwide...

What are ppl doing for Drishtant? C'mon guys.. blokes as far as St. Kitts and Anna University have been asking questions... they seemed eager to participate... wouldn't exactly be a good show if more outstation teams turn up than BIT teams.. eh? And talking of participation.... rumours have it that Bitotsav'06 is going to be held from 1st Feb'06 till just before Drishtant. Now, Kshitij is starting on the 2nd of Feb. Would BITians give up their enthusiastic prep for the KGP techfest (Kshitij), just to show some acticity on campus for BITOTSAV ? Narf... My ass... If I correctly remember, Tatva was a total sham... Tej Dhar (snort)... hmf... Any sane person wouldn't go and waste his/her time in stupid, badly managed attempts at a "college fest" like the BITOTSAV... at least not till the current administration is around... Let's all head for Kshitij... it's more fun there...

News just came in that the Architecture department of BIT went on a study tour of some sorts.. Mallik you gotta fill in the gaps... I ain't gotted the full details...
looks like they were supposed to head off for Orissa (Cuttack,Bhubaneswar and Puri)... But certain ppl (administration again) insisted that tickets for the train be booked only after the concession forms arrive... BIT released the forms on 5th December - Team 007 could not therefore avail of it for their trip to Coimbatore, being away from campus, And due to some railway entrance exam in orissa on 18th Dec, all trains were chock full.. so the Archi dept had to settle for a bus for their journey to Orissa on 17th. As luck would have it, as the bus started out from Ranchi, a tanker collided with god knows what, and lay sprawled across the highway (NH-33), making sure that the entire Archi paltan arrived at Jamshedpur at night, instead of afternoon(as planned). and so far that's the update.. they put up at Cuttack, i presume....

Do let us know what you have been doing over the vacations.. keep the comments coming.. you have no idea hom much we appreciate them...
It's late at night... yawn... I'm going off to watch a movie - "Johny English" a funny one according to what ppl have told me...
By the way... all people who have missed 'The Shawshank Redemption', make it a point to watch it... Rare are such movies....
And all those fools who are planning to watch "Neal and Nikki" with their families... It's an R-rated movie ppl... take your gals for it, or best go with a bunch o pals... A few good songs, and a screen full of the girl's tits... that's what you'll get... and it's just 80 minutes long.. so you won't have to put up for long if you don't like it... And people have been telling me that "Bluff-Master" is amazing too.. as is "Missed Call".... well try them out if you wish...
And among books.. I got "One Night at a Call Centre" by Chetan Bhagat of the "Five Point Someone" fame for my birthday... will try to finish that by the time i come back... And also try out the follwing books... They're a treat to read I assure you:

The Evening News by Arthur Haily
A Stone For Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins
We, The Living by Ayn Rand
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

Adios...
-ONE

Friday, December 16

Update 5.12

Okies ppl..
First things first... Thank you mr. "anonymous"... for correcting my English.
And here's some quick newsflash from Bangalore where our TEAM 007 is staying, albeit not together.
BIT stood 23rd amonst 49 teams, solving 4 out of 8 problems... which i personally think is commendable... 50% of any ACM problemset is quite a good show. Further details of the journey, contest,etc will be posted soon... As of now.. waiting for details..
will update in the next..
gotta go..
hungry..
-ONE

Tuesday, December 6

Whatcha doin, ppl ?

So BITians... how's the holidays going ?
Surely everybody is enjoying the good food and warm beds at home, though missing the late hours of the hostel. Harry Potter - Goblet of Fire is out in the theaters. Take my word for it - it's a theater watch. Don't make the mistake of watching it on a comp, or TV. you'll simply miss the effects.
Prep for the Robotix Workshop to be held in Jan 06 is going on in full swing. The organising team is working real hard to make this a truly memorable experience for the young minds on campus. And from the looks of it - it sure will be.
If anyone of you has anything interesting to share - something that you've achieved during the holidays that is worth noticing, or some funny incident that you had.. or a new joke you'd wish to share with your fellow BITians.. simply post them in the comments section. They'll be posted in the next update to the blog. After all.. this blog is for the BITians, by the BITians and of the BITians...
Enjoy the winters.. my fave season...
Ciao
-ONE

Friday, December 2

Adios

Phew!!!
finally.. got rid of the monster that was end sems....
the last paper was a sitter.. will save me some GPA...
as for the latest news..
BIT ought ot be proud of it's students:
Team "COMET NOSCE" comprising of Suchintya Dandapat, Siddharth Priya, and Atul Prasad represented the institution at the International Collegiate Programming Contest 2006 Kolkata Regionals, and secured an honourable mention.
Team "007" comprising of G.V.S.Abhishek, Aditya Devurkar, and Sumit Kr. Dey will be representing BIT at the ICPC 2006 Coimbatore Regionals, to be held on 11th-12th December, 2005. Here's wishing them the best of luck. (The winners of the Regionals get to go to Texas for the ICPC World Finals)
For all those who are interested in learning/enhancing their skills in C/C++/Java, just drop a mail at acm.bit@gmail.com

as for other news... the rumour mills are working overtime..
seems, Wi-Fi Internet access has been stopped, reportedly since it had achieved it's target of letting the campus 'inmates' taste the proverbial blood... hardly matters.. since if it worked once, it'll surely work again...
People are packing their comps off.. wither to some faculty housing 'dump', or to their own homes.. accompanied by lotsa permissions to be taken from the security office, the hostel supri.. and so on and so forth...
The 2k5 Batch will be starting their end sems from 2nd Dec... well, all the best to them from fellow BITians.. may the Lord give them strength (read guile) to brave the frequent power cuts, and crappy 1st semester syllabi to muster enough GPA to be called respectable... Amen...
Okies ppl..
Even I'm human, gotta sleep, pack my dabba, and leave this place for another one where food is excellent, laundry service is impeccable, but the unearthly hours are strictly forbidden - HOME.
Keep blogging, posting your comments, and don't forget to sign your comments :D
Happy Holidays...
-ONE