The Media Melee
I have always been a big fan, infact, a crafian for competition.. but, it _has_ to be healthy. Was reading through an article in Rediff, frankly, I've never liked rediff, but have liked some articles real lot, mostly these were read on the insistence of ppl around me... This article was abt cricket and was nice. When I was almost going to like this guy, he came up with a line "The Times of India thinks it is wooing the young and hep in this way, but in the long run, a national newspaper of this stature which offers nothing of substance is committing suicide. " Had he said this as a journalist from 'The Hindu' or 'The Indian Express' or even the 'Deccan Herald', I'd have been all for him... but, from rediff???? Look at _your_ front page man... That one can't see his own back, is exemplified here... All that these people are coming up these days with online magazines is yellow journalism.. Its definitely a big shame that the TOI has the biggest sale in the country... In fact, 2 of my roomies, when I'd been in bangalore for UG project work, were hell-bent on buying this damned piece of not-worth-being-tissue for newspaper... I hate it to the core, its no different from the way 'The Banner' is explained in The Fountain Head (am another _GREAT_ fan of Ayn Rand), but rediff, ofcourse is slightly better, can take no exception... The most important articles in Rediff and as for that even MSN is abt sex in indian movies, bikini clad women, movies past, present and future, what a cinema star said abt a politician and statements uttered by liquor barons, with sprinkled news... Today for instance, 3 of the top six news in Rediff is abt indian cricket, one of them is Rameez Raja's column, my... apart from cricket, we have one article titled The most glamorous Bollywood pix! (link is to the front page of rediff). Most of other stuff on that page is images, one of Yuva's heroine, another of finding a partner (looking at this female's face, i'd never want to go for anything with rediff), another of calling cards (not a simple ad, this is one of those prominent things u can see on the front page), then again movies beneath these... not one image that actually shd occur on the cover of a magazine... More often prefer reading news from google and ofcourse, my Hindu. neways, fed up with these... The Hindu is the best newspaper i guess, from crozies to news to everything... My roomie is a strong opposer of this, but i give a damn...
obVSly...

P.S: Happened to come across another blogspot today... he shd be reading a lot... big bow to Mr.Praveen... 'd love to learn as much stuff, but, not as good in that :(

What a Master's can teach
Sorry the unfortunate ones (u reading this).. I've gotten into blogging a bit more frequently...
neways... its going to be 2 years in the US under the pretext of doing a PG and what have I learnt here...
Browsing the net
Have become more efficient in this... .can do almost everything with this... so, lost 25% of my brains. This involves a whole gamut of things, searching for anything i want, technically or otherwise, playing games, from literati, in which i majored through my first semester and to yahoo chess now.. good work by yahoo, in blunting our brains ;), downloading movies.. mahn, i'dn't have watched so many of them if i was in India, but here I watch almost every movie within a month after its released.. Most of them are highly irritating is the flip-side, but, get to listen to all new songs and thanks to a.r.rahman in particular, more time to waste trying to link it to the other song it reminds me of and to vairamuthu for making me listen more intently... and hell blogging.... these're definitely a few of those, won't be having time to write the rest, probly shd ask nattu to do it :P
Hollow Researches
This, supposedly, if had some meaning, is what we came to the US for... but, my research atleast, has primarily been in chatting, finding out holes here and there, see who's got a better comp, who's online to chat with, which site has what useless stuff to see off an evening (i get up in teh afties only ;) ), blah, blah, blah, blah........
Free Stuff and Zero-cost returns
Almost all desis major in this... if we were asked to do our thesis on this, raapi'd be the best ;)... More often than not spend time finding out, which shop has what deals, where can we get stuff free for sometime and then return it after using (honestly, have never done that to date, but, have definitely thot of doing something like that). Mail-in-Rebates, plunder maximum off these ppl, afterall, they'dn't give this if it wasn't profitable.. free-shipping online shops... goes endless
Supremacy of _my_state_
Another of those things... hollow arguments and debates.. tamil's better than telugu.. telugu's better than kannada.... brings nothing out eod... if that's inter-state, the intra-state doesn't stay far behind, imagine if some city in TN 'd dare to stand up against chennai!!! but, nice way to waste some time, so no cribs ;) all the more, when iam going to end up winner ......
New Language
The point of taking TOEFL before coming over is another of those puzzling things.. there'sn't english spoken here, shd be american... neways, learnt a new language, but at the cost of forgetting another... refer to my prevs blog...
Managing debts
As an international student, this another thing we master in... My debts have been piling up more than I can scale.. Very nice of my dad to have taken VRS, i've sucked in all that money now, but in need of more and thinking of pilfering from some of these guys who were with me, but're now better of workin in the US(A).. So many credit cards to help u spend and get indebted...

Have more to write, but , I know u don't have time/patience/interest to read further, so may I decide to spare u...

Inviting one of my closest friends into blogging, he'd started once, but has refrained after testing, probly blogspot failed his test? neways, here's Figur as we call him for him to get pissssed off ;)
and stumbled on another blogspot...

obVSly...

Perplexing Plurals
Honestly speaking, my english knowledge has been deteriorating day by day. I thought I was pretty good in it, not after coming to the US. The language used here and over the messengers has made my english suck.
Thinking about that, I was reminded of those umpteen discussions we used to have back in hostel during my undergrad...
Is Banian an english word? Which is right, pants/trousers? Do the words datas, staffs exist? What exactly is a gerund?
That gave me to think something about plurals...
Right in Class 4, I was told 'fishes' is not the plural of 'fish'. I have seen the usage of the former in many novels.
'Staffs', seems to be a perfectly right word for plural of 'staff'. Ofcourse, datas cannot be the plural of data, itself being the plural of datum. And mice plural of mouse, why did they ever decide to have it so complicated?? But, I'd still love to follow the convention, instead of being a maverick for the sake of it.
I see a number of technical papers having appendixes, it doesn't make sense, can't people realise that?
And there are several other words that cause the confusion, like ignoramuses (ignorami?), pendulums (pendula?)...
Not just the plurals, there are also stuff like, usage of 'climate' in place of 'weather', using 'was' with a past form of a word, 'itself' with some human being, using an ' apostrophe s' after a word ending with an 's', pronouncing 'Lewis' as 'Louis' (the latter goes as louie and the former lewIS), using 'one of' followed by a singular....
okokokok, iam not a pedant, neither is my english perfect, but, i often see such usages being imputed to the so-called 'golts', but, ppl make so many mistakes which seem to be admissible, and this really hurts, so came this blog....
obVSly...
BTW, does someone remember the alumnee, alumnii stuff??? Remember reading something like that in Norman Lewis, one for plural of male and the other female... Gray cells gotten fuzzy :((

NOT DREAMS, BUT DEEDS...
Rahman and Vairamuthu have done it again... Hats off... particularly to vairamuthu's lyrics.. But, I personally feel, that Jana Gana Mana, which has the title of this blog 'Kanavugal alla, Kaariyam thunai...' is kiiiinda immature...
So, thought would dissect that here, with due apologies to the great...
saranam starts like this...
'Ayudham edu, Aanavam sudu, Theepandham edu, Theemaiyai sudu...' hmmmm.... caught up with Iruvar???
first saranam ends as 'Aayiram Ilaignargal thunindhuvittal, Aayudham edhuvum thevai illai'???? Man, is this the same song I am hearing??? Even before I come out of this thot, 'Vaaliba koottani vaal eduthal, vala pakkam bhoomi thirumbi vidum'... hmmm, definitely, something's wrong somewhere...
But, started thinking of this last line... Let me explain my view, sorry had to dust my science knowledge, forgot all these astronomy stuff..
If (is it a very big IF???) the earth rotates from left to right and the sun is in the center, then the part of earth rotating to right, sees the sun, which means, it turns from darkness unto light... another way to put it would be, the sun rises in the east (wow, what a discovery ;) ), and east is to our right (again, everything is relative, more reason why i should read Theory of Relativity, but the detterent, i'dn't understand, is stronger) so, when earth turns to valapakkam it becomes brighter or lit. So,is the 'thamashoma jyothir gamaya' what vairamuthu meant? or is that the simple, valapakkam (to the right, opposite of wrong)?
Forgive me.. almost always try to understand the lyrics, my roomie and all those ppl from 7-k palace 'd understand...
And 'Fanna...' another masterpiece from vairamuthu...
Lemme put down my favorite lines from the song...
Yaakkai thiri, Kaadhal sudar
Piravi Pizhai, Kaadhal thirutham
Irudhayam Kal, Kaadhal sirpam
But, what on earth is Fanna???
No taking credit away from Rahman... Great songs... Again, 'Unmai Sonnal, nesippaya ' is my favorit... But, every song reminds of another... the title (i guess) 'DoluhDoluh.. ' has shakalakka baby + ling lida ling ling + a few others and every techno reminds of those english albums... neways, he's done a great job.
Lemme get back to listening to 'em now... tata..
obVSly...

(V)ET(T)YMOLOGY
This has probably been my longest day in Lubbock... Got up at 4:00a.m. and had to sit through 'Pakistan Zindabad' for the first 3 hours :(, two words that seemed to spell global threat and that was suprabhatam for me this morning...
Then, with all fervour and zest came to the lab, the 36F wasn't cold... and when I was here, the damn link did not show me the video and had to settle with the WORST commentary i've ever heard in life from cricinfo. To cap it all, India lost :( Sachin's valiant effort another waste...
Well, then decided to make use of this day, so went to subway on University Avenue after almost 8-9 months, browsed all possible web-sites for some new movie to download and then decided to go home and catch some sleep... After an hour played tennis, sorry tossed the ball a few times, and now got to give the perfect finish to the day... heheee, 'vetti' seems to mean 'knows' in sanskrit ;)
so, how'd this word have changed to mean a jobless person?? nalla yosinga... i guess nattu to be the first person to come up with an answer... avan thaan ippo miga periya vetti, won over rapi hands down ;)

ONE SEMINAR THAT MADE SENSE
I have been attending seminars at Tech for over a year and a half and never felt it worth to keep myself awake... but, today, it was one seminar that made sense, and worth the 45+ minutes...
It showed how important it is for the speaker to realize the time of the audience. His sense of humor made sure the technicality was not lost. Ofcourse, it was something the person has been working from scratch and had numerous problems bringing it up, still, he knew the way to make people hear that...
Most of the other I'd attended so far have been on sand and only made things muddy and here it was one on DSP and stood out.
Thanks Mr.Gene Frantz, can go to the next one with some enthu, but sure that's going to be doused
obVSly...
P.S: Don't miss out Nattu's blogs... He's is usual crazy stuff and it only keeps getting hilarious

Making soft stuff hard!!!
Was reading through the article in CNN about buying stamps to send e-mail!! hmmm... not cool really, huh?
Microsoft has been proving time and again that they can't come up with something their own... The other option from Goodmail Systems and Yahoo seemed to make more sense...
Basically, the idea seems to be making ppl send a li'l more time solving a math puzzle, before checking the mail, which should probably keep the spammers away(:-/) Again, this wasn't something that Bill Gates or his much-known-spoiler came up first with.. This is a trailer to the other option of Yahoo, trying to charge bulk-mailers (really sensible approach).
Now, with Microsoft's brainchild, when someone has to check some mail in a hurry or is about to check a mail about a relative's health or something, has to solve a math puzzle and then go onto check his mail!!! What an innovation? I don't understand how these ppl grew upto such a stature... Even if its worth the time to be taken by the normal man to solve a puzzle before checking his mail, how long would it take before the spammers come up with a software (it could be a very simple application) that would breach this?? Man, someone please impart some sense to these windozers...
No wonder the 'forward' of intel making a chip with an enscription "BILL SUCKS" gained good popularity and credibility, even among scores of s/w engrs. Every innovation of these people seems to be an irritation, Microsoft encountering a problem and closing the application, Necessity to download a patch, Need of numerous service packs for one version of their OS, Windows Updates and the Damned Blue Screen... the list is getting bigger....
But, after all this, I should acknowledge the fact that if not for Gates, Windows and the computer would not have been this popular and commonplace, but, its time for someone to show them the door(s).
obVSly...