IPL

No – This is not a post about cricket. After a few days of watching IPL matches you cant avoid noticing the band of girls in skimpy clothes and pom poms dancing after every boundary and wicket. I doubt that half of the junta that turns up in the stadiums is for them. Whoever thinks that they are mere cheergirls – Think again they are PROFESSIONALS.

Their team is called the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders. As you would have known by now they cheer the team Washington Redskins – The second most valuable team in NFL, Highest season attendance, an abovee 50% winning ration in super bowls and NFL championships, the first team to have a marching band and blah … blah … blah … you can find all the info here. Hey werent we talking about the cheerleading team … yeah this is there official site. They are oldest cheerleading association in the world. They have been in business since 1962. They are called “The FIRST ladies of FOOTBALL”. Once you have a look at their site, you would know that they are outright professionals. “Brand your business with the cheerleaders ….. We help you reach Washington D.C ….” – phew !!!

Want to have a look at their history .

“In addition to touring with the football team, they have also performed around the world. In 1982, they were invited to be the first NFL cheerleaders to perform in Asia promoting U.S. commercial products throughout Taiwan. In 1983 the cheerleaders produced their first calendar, which they have continued since. In 1984, they were the 4th NFL squad to perform in a United Service Organizations (USO) tour entertaining the armed forces in Turkey, Italy, Sicily, Spain and the 6th Fleet off the coast of France. Since then, they have participated in numerous Department of Defense (DOD) tours to entertain U.S. servicemen and women. DOD tours have included Egypt in 2000, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2001, Kosovo in 2002, and others for a total of over 35 countries. In December 3-17 of 2005, they completed their 20th overseas tour for the USO, entertaining U.S. troops in East Asia.“

Every year the squad is rebuilt retaining some and recruiting some fresh talent. And girls who leave obviously find a place in alumni association.

Hey thats not the end – while the cheerleading squad entertain the crowds, there is another team called the Washington Redskins Cheerleader Ambassadors who interact with fans. Unfortunately our truly beloved Vijay Mallya invited only the Cheerleaders and not this squad.

There is a an all star team too and a junior redskins team for kids. They organize camps, clinics and train wannabe cheerleaders. They have an official variety show which they perform for corporate events, sports activities, troops stationed overseas etc. They have merchandise and customized calenders and what not.

With all this dancing going on, how can controversies stay behind. BJP raised this issue in the Maharashtra Assembly. Their point is that when Bar Dancers are banned in Mumbai, how come they are allowed to dance. I am neutral to this – Yeah sure inflation is up and employment is down – These jobs should have gone to Indians .

As a final gift here is the whole squad for the season 2007-08.

Finally I would like the reader not to have any misconceptions or second thoughts about my post. Some of you Right Conservatives might think that i have gone over the board – No I have not – I have not talked about their sexuality or their oomph factor – I have only and only potrayed them as pure professionals. This post was written so that next time you see them, you dont categorize them as dancers or skimpy dressed blondes and brunettes, but as a team of professional entertainers performing.

Headlines Today !!

Just got the idea of posting some humorous, informative links from here.

Off.

Fish in all sizes, colors and emotions !!!

I cant understand why people having big money dont pay taxes.

“Quanum of Solace” – Second Alfa Romeo car destroyed.

Megan Fox – Transformers rey …..

We have been banning FTV , so its time for the western world to ban our channels .

Gears of War

For the non gaming community – Please dont read further.

With nothing much to do, I am back being my usual self – looking for some good games. With the whole 24 hrs of a day to my avail I have laid my hands on some decent games.

NBA 08 – Good for a sports genre game. I have never been a great fan of Basketball and this game does nothing to inspire me. Take this if you are really in to the Alley Hooping and Slam Dunks.

UEFA EURO 08 – FOOTBALL !!! With the EURO 08 coming up this game offers you enough footballing action to keep you busy. The menus are refreshingly beautiful – something that the last two versions for EA lacked in. The OSTs are really good. With some new free kick techniques and a weird (but funny) penalty shootout camera angle, EURO 08 is surprisingly good. Three modes – EURO 08(with and without qualifications), Captain your team and the EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN – Choose a C grade team and make it the champion of EUROPE. If you are really in to football pick this one up. Take care – same FIFA 08 controls.

Splinter Cell - Was checking out for some good old FPS and luckily found this on ORB’s ftp – Infact he suggested it. Good. Played Thief – Put it in the modern age, throw some NSA, CIA stuff and You get the first installment of Splinter Cell. A perfect stealth game and pretty easy to play. One thing that definitely stands out are the graphics of this game. After seeing Bioshock, Assassin’s creed, Crysis etc. you may not appreciate them. But considering that the game was developed in 2004 – I would say its pretty good and that Game Graphics have developed in an exponential fashion. There is one scene in which you walk through a garden and the light rays just diffuse in – Awesome.

Gears of War - Aha !!! If you are a great lover of hard core FPS – this is the game for you. If you are into adrenaline pumping games like painkiller, Quake, UT, Serious Sam – This game will not disappoint you. Extremely good graphics and some really good gameplay. You play Fenix – with a humongous suit around you – which makes you look uber cool and the other guys are just too cool to describe. With a pretty interesting story this shall grip you to your chair. Downside is that it can be heavily demanding on graphics – Running it in medium settings on a ATI x1600 128 MB/ 2GB ram machine. This is the game to play in the summer !!!!

Summer is gonna be interesting with GTA IV all set to release.

Farewell and Heartache

They say “Life is all about the small things”. The last few days have been great, sad, demoralizing, thrilling, disappointing and what not. Least to say, the days have been dramatic, bidding some really close friends goodbye. Farewell, Batch Trip – These were all big things – Big in the sense that they made us realize that the 180 odd people belonging to ug2k4 would never be together again. But time has taught me that its the small things that pinch you harder.

Not getting me –

It might be a simple mail. A mail from Appaji reminding us of our semester fees. As a 1st-3rd year student you would responsibly follow the link/open the doc to check your fees. But we dont need to do it, coz we are leaving.

It can be your gtalk/yahoo im. WIth scores of friends online, you could easily scroll down several times. But now with a mere handful online you just realize that your gtalk would never be “House Full”.

It can be a mail from PJN – As you pass out, we invite you to the alumni meeting ……. – you are invited because you are leaving.

It can be a mere form – No Dues Certificate – As you tread the steps of library for the last time, as you press the enter key of your lab pc for the last time, as you meet your BTP mentor for the last time, as you submit the TT racket/football/volleyball to the PEC which you issued in the first year, you realize that its time to leave.

It can be a registration form – Registration form for the Alumni Association. All these years we have been picking forms from the cabinet in Office room but never would anyone lay his eyes on this – but now its inevitable that you do pay attention to it.

It can be a mail from BLN – All fourth year students will have to vacate their rooms by april 30th. You are leaving ……

It can be as simple as packing your stuff – something you dare not do all these four years. There cant be a better example than varun for this. What looked liked a fortress till yesterday is now a clean room.

Your wing looks vacant – it has looked several times in the past – but you know that the rightful residents of the rooms will return in a few days. But not now – coz they have left.

It can be status messages – What used to be medium for satirical jokes, boasting off, http links – All these have given way to philosophical quotes.

Rooms – When everyother year you discuss about which hostel to stay and which room to take, its now time to talk about the city and the colony and the friends with whom your are gonna share your apartment. Dude its time to leave the portals of IIIT and head in to the WORLD.

There are lots of others – lots and lots of them. All tell us one thing – We are leaving.

Read more >> Options >>

Batch Trip

All batch trips are AWESOME !!!! So there is no point blabbering about how good our batch trip was, what we did and everything. But to put it in few words – We went to Shimla, Kulu, Manali and saw lots and lots and lots of mountains and lot of us played in snow for the first time.

Now the interesting part. Heard the saying “Dont follow others path but make your own”. IT DOESNT APPLY WHEN YOU ARE TREKKING IN SNOW COVERED MOUNTAINS. Seriously. My batch of friends tried to this and had a brush with death (including yours truly) . Subsequently i was rescued by two benevolent people. I did pay them 100/- for saving my life – so at present my life is valued at rs 100/- huh!!! However playing in the snow was fun. We all were like little kids – as happy as when you get a new set of lego sets or hot wheels.

With lots of mountains around us we couldnt think of anything better than trekking. We trekked till a temple called tara devi mandir. What started as a 3 kms / 30 minutes trek ended up being a 7 kms/ 90 minutes one. The trek led us through thick forests full of damp air so it wasnt so exhausting but our legs did ache a lot. So how can a trek of 7 kms pass of without anything happening. Pondy (read graphics tutor aka D. Pavan Kumar) was scared to death in the middle way. He was like ” I am dead, Hold my hand, I will fall, I will slip, OMG I am scared”. Ravi with his immense patience helped him in reaching the top. Dont let the above sentences give you the feeling that the trek was treacherous – It wasnt even a bit, Pondy is a Sissy. I saw 8 year old kids running and jumping along the path. The trek got us to a flat top mountain from where you could see the whole of shivalik range – IT WAS GORGEOUS.

We went white water rafting. AWESOME experience. Its got be when chilling water hits you right in the face.

The bus rides were entertaining. Girls literally ragged Harinath ( sexy patel pepsi patel rey…). A huge round of applause for the girls – for their energy and sportiveness. The trip would have never been so great without you. Yeah we also had a silly fight over seats in the bus . Frankly you are worse than 8 year old kids .

Everything was fine till we started from chandigarh to delhi. A number of people wont be making the return journey to hyderabad with us. The fact that it would be the last time you would be seeing them made it altogether difficult to bear. If there is anyone out there from my batch reading this – Wish you the very best – stay in touch, it might be a simple mail saying hi – how are you and a much informal ‘Whazzzzzaaaaa’.

Thank you for all the memories.

Senti part over.

Got a chance to travel in Delhi Metro – It rocked. I have been in London’s Metro and ours falls no where short of it – Great work Sreedharan.

And now for some shocking revelations in the batch trip.

• Pondy has fear of heights and he is DUMB.
• Daka is pretty famous among girls.
• Pati has unparalled knowledge about hindi songs.
• Boppay – Telugu Films – GOD.
• Bhaskar – I better not disclose this.
• Praveen and Pati are bigger items than Pondy.
• Patel is afraid of girls.
• Bava has motion sickness.
• Koyya rocks at hindi songs.
• Ravi knows only one hindi movie – Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
• Girls are calm, Boys are noisy – Reverse this.
• Daka and Vaka are Bava-Bavamardis.
• Kirthi is Kasi-Enugu (He wrote a research paper during the batch trip)
• Ling can become frustrated and has a very small vocabulary of gaalis.
• We eat a lot
• Sati has two girlfriends and he didnt anything from shimla for both of them.
• Kowshit rocks at DUMB C – He is the dumb in DUMB C.
• The legend is true – Koyya doesnt bathe.
• People still call me shashank
• Ravali is the samba equivalent in girls.( Chalta Firtha IMDB)
• My hindi hasnt deteriorated much.
• You cant buy much to eat in 10 rupees ( Joy and me found this out).
• My BTECH is over.

Last but not the least heart felt thanks to

Suncheti and Daka – For taking the whole responsibility of organizing the batch trip.

Samba and Mohit – Rooms allotment

Yaso – For being that hyperactive guy and energizing us at all times, my tea partner everywhere.

Bachi – For bringing his wonderful camera which he unconditionally gave to me.

Sarika – For encouraging us to do some “Adventure”

Boppay and Pati – For the immense gyaan on telugu and hindi songs.

Rasagna, Manohar, Thummi and all the back seaters – For not cribbing about the bad seating and co-operating

Koyya – Nee ayya rey …..

Hareesha, Haritha and Geetha – For showing that you can still be a kid even if you are 21and that shouting is the best way to stay thin.

Ling, Revanth – For lending me the much useful toothpaste and shampoo

Dont worry if I have left you out – It might have been intentional

Adios.

Countdown…..

Exactly 3hrs 31 minutes to complete my under graduation.

The IIM-I Experience

Date: 12th February

Venue : Administrative Staff College of India,Hyderabad

Time : 2 PM

Group was of 9 people but one didnt turnup, so 8 people.

GD Topic:
Dilip joins a software company which has the motto “Treat each customer with respect and dignity”. He finds out that its not the case within the

pricing division of the company as they charge the old customers thrice the money as the new customers. He brings this issue to the notice of the manager who

scolds him for acting against him. What should he do now?

The GD was pretty smooth, no fish market scenario, no one cutting anyone else. I spoke about 8-9 times.

PI:

People were being called in random order. I was the fourth to be called.

The panel consisted of a Guy(G) and a Lady(L) both in their 40s or 50s.

I(M) enter and greet both of them. The lady asks me to take a seat while the guy takes my certificates.

L: Tell me about yourself
M: Told.
L: Do you read books?
M: No mam, I am not an avid reader.
L: Do you watch movies?
M: Yes mam.
L: What kind? Horror?
M: Primarily action and drama.
L: Telugu movies ?
M: Sometimes.
L: Whose is your favourite actor?
M: Told
L: Why not chiranjeevi ?
M: He is old.
L: There has been a lot of ruckus about his political entry and the recent rajasekhar issue. What do you think about it.
M: The problem is with his cult status. Followers shall blindly follow his ideology and cant take criticism against him etc.
L: Did A.P face this issue sometime earlier?
M: Yes, NTR – Telugu Desam Party.
L: Why do you think NTR won ?
M: Political Vaccuum, His fame, Pro-Poor policies.
L: What happened to TDP later?
M: Chandrababu naidu took over.
L: What do you think of him.
M: Tech savvy developed hyd, sec but could done a lot. Left Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur which is a major tobacco trading centre, ports etc.
L: Tobacco – whats the international problem that India is facing with the tobacco problem?
M: I am not so sure but i think a consignment was rejected due to its poor quality.
L: Russia rejected it.
L: You are from IIIT – Tell me something about it.
M: It was established in 1998 with the state govt and private funding.
G: How many IIITS are there?
M: 4 – Hyd, Allahabad, Gwalior, Bangalore.Ours is not under any govt. while allahabad is under central govt. dont know about others. Ours is Intl. while the

others are Indian.
G: Why?
M: Explained.
L: You said you are from Ongole – what is ongole famous for?
M: Bulls
L: Why is ongole bull famous.
M: Breed is very strong – used extensively for plowing fields etc.

(By this time G goes through my certificates)

G: What is this computer vision course?
M: 2D to 3D.
G: Practical application.
M: Microsoft photosynth, CBIR etc.
G: CBIR?
M: Content based image retrieval – explained with the example of google images and how it differs from it.
G: Basic questions on CBIR – machine learning, benchmarking etc.
M: Answered.
G: When you type google.com what happens.
M: Are you talking about DNS servers etc.
G: Go ahead…
M: Explained DNS hierarchy, institute and ISP cache, NAT etc.
G: What is an IP address.
M: 32 bit identifier.
G: Write an ip.
M: 172.16.31.2 (hehe my room’s ip)
G: Explain what it is
M: 8 bits- 4 segments = 32 bits.
G: What is the maximum value?
M: 255.255.255.255
G: Explain the parts in IP address.
M: Network and host part, Class A,B,C,D,E ip addresses.
Stopped me while explaining B type.
G: What is TCP/IP?
M: Network layer protocol to ensure delivery of packets wrt to the ip addresses etc.
G: What is a dynamic ip address?
M: Allotted by DHCP etc.
G: What happens if I do some illegal stuff with my ip and then shut down my pc. Can you find me.
M: We can track down the MAC address but then we need to find to whom this MAC address belongs to etc.
G: Where does a firewall work ?
M: I am not so sure but i think that it would be Network or transport layer.
L: What are these layers?
M: Model – 5 layers , OSI – 7 Layers etc.
G: Placed ?
M: Yes sir, Oracle.
G: Thats it.
L: Do you have any questions ?

M: Mam, does IIMI provide any course on IT and management etc
L: There are electives that can be taken in 2nd year – finance, BM, IT etc.
M: Can we take multiple ?
L: Sure.
G: Only IIMB offers such course – distance learning havent you heard of it?
M: No sir.
L: How many calls do you have?
M: 6
L: Is this your first interview?
M: No mam, Lucknow was the first.
L: How did it go?
M: GD was not so good, Interview was fine.
L: How would you rate your GD today.
M: On a scale of 10 , 5-6.
L: Rank yourself in the group.
M: 4-5.
L: If you convert all the calls which one would you join.
M: Mam, i would like to do an MBA which stresses on IT ..
G: He would ask all the colleges and then decide right
M: Yes sir
L: Any more queries.
M: No mam.
G,L:You can leave.
M: Thank you.
I think both GD and PI went fine. If only i hadnt asked them the last question

FELICITY ‘08

The IIML Experience.

31st January – 2:00 PM

The morning interviews took some time and the gd started at 3 PM.

Topic : The test of a successful person is not to eliminate difficulties but to meet and sort those difficulties.

30 minutes to think and write a 500 word essay.

Seating in the gd was according to the names in the list. (Mine was the first)

15 minutes of discussion.

My GD didnt go so well – interuppted only 4-5 times.

Interview :

Was the first one in the panel.

Two people – One Old (O), one young (Y) and Me (M).

M- Good afternoon sirs.
O,Y – Good afternoon, take your seat.

O – Being the first one in the panel, do you think you have any advantage/disadvantages.
M – Both sir. Disadvantage is that i am the first one, so i am a bit tensed.
O – No, why be tensed. This is gonna be cool. Just relax. And advantage ?
M – Mine will be finished early so no anxiety.
O – Good. What was your stand on the GD.
M – Told him the point i had written in the essay. I mentioned something about Risk in life.
O – What is risk.
M – Any event that might hamper your growth or can affect your performance.
O – What is risk mathematically?
M – Any negative input to an equation of working/perfomance.
O – Isnt there any probability in risk ?
M – Yes sir. If an event has happened in the past, its likely that the event may occur given the condition are same.
O – Whats the probability of your getting in to IIML?
M – It will depend on my performance.
Y – Dont you want it to be 1 ?
M – yes sir definitely.
Y – What factors do you need to calculate your probability?
M – My performance in GD, Interview etc.
O – Thats it ?
M – No sir and the marks of other people too.
O – So you think only marks are needed ?
M – If we assume that the selection only on the basis of marks and no other criteria is taken into consideration.
Y – Lets say we have a few people and each one has been given marks on a scale of 10. Calculate the probability of a person getting selected.
I wrote ABCD and then Y said that 4 are enough. Gave them 4,7,8,2 marks.
Y- Assuming that you are B , whats your probability of getting in.
M – 7/21.
O – Shouldnt it be 7 / 4*10 ?
M – That can also be used but i think 7/21 will be much better.
O – Thats it, any other things you need to take in to consideration?
M – The no. of people you want to take in.
Y – You are making life unnecessarily complicated (Dont know what he meant).
Y – Lets assume we will take atleast 2 people.
M – 3 cases – 2,3,4 people – gave the probabilities.
O – Ok. Leave it. (Looks at my form)
O – You have a pretty good academic profile. 9.17 cgpa is pretty good. Are you the topper in your class ?
M – No sir. Third.
O – First ?
M – 9.58 sir.
O – Strength of your batch.
M – 94 students sir.
O – Third in 94. You should take pride in your position.
M – Thank you sir.
Y – What is depth first search ?
M – Drew a binary tree and explained.

O – Certificates please.

Y – Is that a graph ?
M – Its a tree, a specialized form of a graph and then explained DFS on a graph.
Y – Can you think of a application of a graph in real life.
M – Commodity flow sir. Online commodity site. Nodes are centres.You have to transport goods in the lowest cost etc.
O – You have been to NCC republic day camp in 2001.
M – Yes sir in my 9th class.
Y – Take your form, is this an example of computer processing ?
M – Do you mean typing on the computer?
Y – Yes, suppose you are typing on M$ Word – Is it called processing ?
M – Yes, sir since the computer has to decipher what i am typing on the keyboard and display it, it is processing the input.
Y – Its not performing any addition, subtraciton etc.
M – Those are higher orders of processing. Since the computer is taking cycles its processing.
Y – So typing on M$ Word actually takes up some computer cycles.
M – Yes sir. It has to read the input buffer and print the output to it takes some cycles.
Y – What are the three main steps in processing ?
M – Taking some input, analyzing it and giving output.
Y – How does the computer know what you are typing on a keyboard ?
M – There is a logical circuit in a keyboard which sends a signal to the computer.
Y – So you have signals A,B,C etc.
M – No sir they are converted in to their ascii values.
Y – A is 65 right. How is it converted and where ?
M – May be there is a logical unit in the keyboard where its hardcoded that a signal from A will be coded as 65 in binary and sent to computer.
Y – Are you sure?
M – No sir, I think that this might be the mechanism.
Y – Have you ever opened a keyboard.
M – Yes sir. The logical unit is underneat the lights in the keyboard. The point where the wire comes out.
O – What do you do in your leisure time?
M – I love playing and watching football. I am a part of my college football team.
Y – Who won the football world cup ?
M – Italy.
Y – What is yoga ?
M – An ancient art form aimed at developing health and …
Y – Name one person who teaches yoga and is famous
M – Bharath Thakur.
Y – Then what about art of living.
M – Sorry sir, Bharat Thakur is associated with art of living (fumbled )
Y – Really, then who is Ravi shankar.
M – Sorry sir, dont know. (Later realized that i was fooled in to the trap).
O – What is garbage in garbage out ?
M – Tried explaining some machine code.
Y – No. What happens when you give random data to the computer.
M – Random output.
O – Exaclty – Garbage in Garbage out.
O – Are you placed ?
M – Yes sir – Oracle.
O – Pay package ?
M – 8lpa.
Y – What does Oracle mainly deal with?
M – RDBMS and ..
Y – What is RDBMS?
M – Classes and then you have relationships between them.
Y – No, thats ER. Tables called relations and referential integrity between them.
M – Yes sir. (Got confused between the both )
Y – Thats pretty much (Looks at O )
O – Yeah I am finished. Thank you, you can leave.
M – Thank you sir.
O – Dont be tensed, You have a long journey to make in life.
M – Thank you sir.

And what did the last sentence mean. :O
Didnt even ask me if i had any questions.

Edited – Somewhere in between Y asked me about e-governance and the initiatives taken by the A.P government in it.

Mr. Gordon Frohman

No, this is not a repost of the previous post on my blog neither is it a typo.

Was surfing the web for rss feeds of comics, when i stumbled across concerned . If you have played Half Life 2 and have loved it (You aint sane if you didnt like it) you would definitely appreciate this comic. Created as a parody, the comic has exactly the same chapters that you shall come across in the game.

The strips focus on events which happen in the game and unless you have played the game I dont think you will enjoy it. If you are jobless enough before the midsems, this is obviously the best way to spend some quality time.

PS: A really good site for rss feeds of comics. (Even found the rss feed of Dilbert )