Tollywood movie copied my story :(

Hell yes !! I had this simple logic of going from one place on Earth to the other which has been copied by some Tollywood movie :(

Here is the poster of that movie:

The logic is as follows:

Earth is revolving constantly from west to east. Now if I need to go from one place to other say, Pune to New York, all I need to do is be in the air for "some" time !! As the Earth will be revolving during this time frame if I get down at the correct time I should find myself in the US !!  :) 

Believe it or not this got copied and was made into a movie. 

Heres the story of the movie:

"Vijay’s dad was killed by the villain, and his mother needs an operation ! So he sells his land for his mother ! Inorder to take revenge, Vijay(Villu) has to go to America to kill the villain, but he has no money, no passport and no visa! So he decides one thing and comes to Chennai ! 

In Chennai, Villu climbs on top of LIC Building, gets blessings fromGodess Kuruvi, and jumps from the top floor!!!  But our Villu stays in air itself in same position! After 12 hrs, the earth rotates and since he is still in the same position, he jumps and lands in America! He kills the villain and returns to Chennai the same way!!!! Wat a man??!!"

Conclusion:

Guys make sure you copyright your ideas, however foolish they sound !!

This my orkut fortune for today:

Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working...

What do they want to suggest [:)] ??

Figures worth pondering over :

Orissa and Bihar account for more than one-fifth of the total poor in India. In Orissa, where to be counted as poor one has to earn less than Rs 474 per month in urban areas and Rs 324 in rural areas, a whopping 47.15% of the population is classified as poor. In Bihar, where corresponding monthly income figures are Rs 380 and Rs 333, as much as 42.6% of the population live below the poverty line. 

As per the health ministry's affidavit, Jammu and Kashmir is least afflicted by poverty. The northernmost state, where urban and rural poverty lines are demarcated by a monthly income figure of Rs 421 and Rs 368, only 3.48% of its population is classified as poor. 

Source TOI. Thurs Nov 13 2008.

Show the principal some respect !!

College time incident:

I used to occupy the 2nd last or 3rd last bench in the class... well why not last ?? well believe it or not our principal fined some "poor" students sitting on the last bench !! so from that day on the last bench was not the first place to go and sit... also some lecturers liked to ask questions to last benchers... so was better not to sit there anyway if you didnt want to be disturbed...  It so happened that I was late to class one day.. so had to occupy the first bench... The class started and I went into trance.. that wonderful feeling when you dont care about what is going around and  you and concentrate on doing.. well nothing... 

Our college principal was this guy who didnt love to be away from action.. so out of the blue he entered the class... Now; Indians are taught to show respect towards elders.. they do so by standing when any lecturer comes in the class... (I guess this is why we stand dont we ??) So when a principal comes in you are supposed to STAND and show respect.... Poor me.. oblivious to the fact that whole class stood up behind me I still continued doing well... nothing.. Infact the trance  stage I reached was so deep that my partner also stood up but I just didnt notice !!

Believe it or not.. the whole class standing in front of the terrorizing principal except me... wow.. Obviously he noticed it... Gave me a look.... Me: didnt notice ;) ... Said something looking at me.. cant remember what as i wasnt listening :) .... Just then I felt a kick... It was my partner .... morning dawned...  I looked around and saw the scene.. was starting to feel that I would have to pay up some money :) Stood up quietly and heard some lecture which the princi had to give...

Awesome day it was....

Bjarne Stroustrup

A few days before had the privilege to attend a talk by Bjarne Stroustrup ( for the uninitiated this is what is written on his homepage: I designed and implemented the C++ programming language.)

He was talking about the new C++0X which he is currently developing... didnt understand that part of the talk but want to share a comment which he made...

"Processors are so fast these days.. the next Intel processor will do an infinite loop in 5 minutes ;)"

Bjarne's homepage: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/

Interesting read:

interesting read:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/how-to-cheat-the-mumbai-train-system/

just thought i should put this down somewhere.... In  a couple of weeks i will be finished with 22% of my Masters work :) 

feels good to read this :D the hidden part is i have 3 submissions and 4 midterms in the next 2 weeks..

parathas

went to the indian store today.. bought around 60 parathas :) am all set for the coming two weeks :P

strange law ?

Something which i happened to read somewhere :

"A blind masseur jumped from a railroad bridge in Seoul, South Korea, during a rally denouncing a move to declare unconstitutional a law that allows only the legally blind to become professional masseurs. For most of the past century, the job of masseur has been reserved exclusively for the legally blind in South Korea. Sighted people who are masseurs, but unlicensed, contend that the law violates their right to employment. Passions are intense on both sides of the debate over whether to preserve the restriction."

Strange law isn't it ?? Can you think of any reasons why this law was put in place ?? :)

Google Talk

Can anyone tell me why Google has provided invisible mode in gmail chat but has not provided the same in Gtalk ?? 

I am not able to comprehend it.... lemme know

Fire alarms

Americans are paranoid about fire... its mandatory to have fire alarms fitted in every apartment.. We also had a fire safety demo arranged for all of the complex residents.. Freebies were being given and I also attended ;) .. Got a free T-shirt saying practice fire safety... 

Many days passed since the day i got the T-shirt.. and as always i decided to wear it since it was old now :) .. So there I was in the bright red colored Tee saying PRACTICE FIRE SAFETY cooking  in the kitchen.  I had just finished cooking rice and opened the cooker lid and what the hell the alarm started to scream... Yeah for those who have never heard the alarm sound believe me its anything but pleasant... 

Imagine my state.. Wearing a tee that was given on the day they showed how not to start the fire alarms.. what care to take.. and the fire alarm goes off !! I was in deep trouble !! Or was I ?? As is the custom here you need to get out of the apt as soon as you here the alarm.. So I rushed outside with the guilty feeling ... As soon as i got out to my relief I found out that it was not because of me that the alarm went off... someone else was the culprit... Poor he.. was getting the looks and murmurs from all the residents of the complex (all the block has to be vacated when any alarm sounds) :)

As for me I just gave him a disgusting look; pointed to the words printed on my Tee and went back and had my dinner :)

Subjects

Ahh the deadline is finally over and now am stuck with the subjects which I had chosen earlier.. cant change them now... 

This what i will be taking this sem:

1. OS

2. Algos

3.Networks

4.Transaction Processing...

Its gonna be tough :)

Siddharth

This is the first time I am the only person named Siddharth in my class !!

In school there were 5 Siddharth's in my division :) forget about the school....

In junior college there were 3 in my div... 

In my engg class there were atleast 4... I might be missing someone... but the point is this time I am the lone person who will answer to that name :) Too bad there is no attendance taken in grad school :(

Can anybody tell me why this name had to take of around the time I was born (1984) ?? Why was it not that popular before that ?? How many people  you know have Siddharth as their name and are  around 40 or something ?? There has to be some reason.... Let me know if you get it....

Petrol

USA !! Everyone here owns a vehicle.... four wheeler or maybe some have more than 4... many of them are fuel guzzlers.. SUV's, pickup trucks you name them and they have it... I wonder what will happen when they run out of fuel.. People here can expect to have tough time real soon... Unless the researchers here find out another alternative... 

Do i understand everything ??

I was attending class today.... analysis of algorithms... as always there were some people who were asking questions; had doubts about what the professor was explaining. I wonder why I am not able to think up of any questions ?? Do I understand everything the prof is teaching or dont I understand anything ?? 

India Shining ??

Is India shining ?? Well the famous/infamous term was coined by BJP in its campaign for the national elections. The votes werent cast in their favour and this made it amply clear that the "real" India wasnt quite shining. After nearly 4 years since one first came to hear of this term, I am trying to put forth my views about it...

Consider India to be a vessel of gold and the policies that the government and various bodies are implementing for the "progress" of India as the ray of light. When the ray of light strikes the gold vessel, it shines and that too very brightly. Now consider that the vessel is divided into 3 parts as shown in the figure above.

The parts belong to the rich, the middle class and the poor section of the population. The government for its survival had to implement the policies, this can be thought as analogous to someone holding the source of the ray of light such that it throws the light on the vessel. What the government succeeded in doing was implementing the policies in such a way that the ray of light was straight and horizontal and from the side of the rich. This indeed resulted in the vessel shining brightly and misled the government in thinking that India was shining brightly. What actually was happening was that only a part of India was progressing, the other part which consisted of the majority of the population wasnt progressing. The BJP couldnt see this, maybe because its leaders didnt take enough pains to go and see how the poor were doing. They were busy implementing huge projects costing inordinate amount of money, which would affect the poor in anyway. The elections came and the feelings of the majority of the people were cast into their votes and the BJP lost power.

For 4 years, the Congress has been in power and they too dont seem to understand that it is not the rich who will keep them in power, but the poor. They too are doing the same fundamental mistake of not doing much for the 'aam admi' contrary to what they promised. I believe what the government ought to do, is to increase the width of the rays which fall on the vessel. This they can do by, not making policies with a narrow mind, but with a wide open mind taking into consideration the real demographics of this country. This will increase the area of the vessel on which the light falls and in return the vessel will shine more brightly. The government should also consider the angle at which they hold the source of light.This can be done by using the private industry to implement some good pro-poor corporate policies. This may result in another source of light from another direction and make our vessel shine more and shine really brightly.

The elections are due next year and going by the current situation, I think a coalition government is in the offing. The Congress will have its tally of seats reduced taking into consideration the anti-incumbency factor and its performance for the last few years. It doesnt seem that the BJP will do any better than the last time as it has failed miserably as the opposition party and doesnt have any issue on which it can contest the election. I will put my hat in the fray and say that leaders like Mayawati and "Saheb" a.k.a Pawar will have a big hand to play in forming the next government. It will not surprise me if any one of the two is the next PM of India ! What do you say ??

TOEFL

Well today i will be writing about my TOEFL iBT experience. First things first, registering for the test was a difficult task. Each time i tried to register the site would take my credit card details and start making the transaction and then just hang up. A message saying that I should not press the refresh button was also displayed stating that doing so would result in two transactions !! Poor me , as if getting peanuts as salary wasnt enough....

The site finally worked well and I was able to register for the test after trying for 3-4 days. I would suggest all test takers to register for the test as soon as possible. In my case i gave GRE in May and went in my procrastinating mode and didnt take up TOEFL until mid-September !! This delayed my application process further and caused a lot of unwanted problems which I will write about in my further posts.

The iBT exam is a relatively easy exam compared to GRE. I didnt prepare that much for this exam. Didnt even buy a book to study. Just got the Toefl Ibt barrons mock tests and solved them. Believe me this is all it takes to give TOEFL ibt. As most of the international students even I was worried about the speaking section. But when I happened to hear the sample responses provided by ETS I was relieved. It wasnt going to be that difficult after all. The principle of dont think what is going to happen to you but think what is going to happen to people who are taking the exam alonngwith you (namely people from countries which were not known to have English as their third language) saw me through. This was the section for which I practiced the most. For those who are not confident about their communication skills I would suggest that they practice a lot. This helps in increasing self confidence and surely helps while giving the test.

I got 113 in the actual test (reading, listening -30 writing- 29 speaking- 24 :(). In hindsight i would like people to prepare more for the speaking section and score good marks in it as well. All in all if you prepared well for your GRE you will sail through TOEFL. (only exception being the speaking section for which you need to prepare.)

In my next post i will jump to the actual application process :) the best part in the whole procedure to get admission in a US university.

GRE prep

Well i have decided that after procrastinating for a long time i will finally start maintaining a blog. What will I write about ? The first few posts will be about the reason why I was delayed in starting a blog. Mainly the GRE experience and the whole application process which is known to make people go insane.

I got my engineering degree from University of Pune and was offered a job after completing it. Unaware of the nature of the job or the skills it would not need I gladly accepted it. Started working for the company and after about 3-4 months was bored enough, to decide that higher education it would be for me. So having decided this I registered for the GRE. [Graduate Record Exam]

GRE is an adaptive test with 800 marks for quantitative and 800 for verbal ability. Oh yes dont forget the analytical writing section for 6 pts. I prepared using the Barron's book [Used the old version... for those who have the old version I would say there is no need to buy the new version as it has some new questions and words but most of the things are same]. I guess it gives you a good idea about the type of questions which you will see on the exam. Although the quant questions which i came across on the exam were definitely tougher than those in the book. The wordlists i believe, cant be mugged up over a period of time. Rather if you start reading various newspaper editorials or novels you start identifying the words in the wordlist and start understanding the meaning of most words. I believe that even if you dont know the exact meaning of the word you can understand the context in which it is being used and this helps a lot while giving the exam as you have the context and four options from which you can eliminate some and then guess. But this atleast helps in increasing your chances of getting the correct answer. It is all a game of percentages.

Also one important thing to concentrate on is the initial questions in each section. GRE is an adaptive test and hence if you answer the initial few questions correctly you start getting questions which fetch you more marks and are of course more difficult to solve.

One important aspect i would like to emphasize in the preparation for this test is the mock exams which should be taken. There are many exams which are there in the market. I would recommend the following:1. Kaplan: Tough tests. Prepare you well for the exam, in terms of the questions asked and the time per question which is available. 2. PowerPrep: Distributed by ETS. Questions are a bit easier than what you will get on the actual exam.3. Barrons test: All the test questions are from the book. So if you have worked hard enough (solved most of the questions in the book) then you would find them easy. Some quant questions are difficult though.
I took all the three exams (Kaplan-5 Powerprep-2 and barrons-3) and am of the opinion that they were of great help in preparing me for the exam in terms of the time distribution. I would certainly recommend that all exam takers give the mocks before taking the actual exam as it will help them in preparing for the D day.

I didnt prepare much for the analytical writing section. Did just two writing tasks present in powerprep and went through some sample responses. I think that people who are accustomed to writing need not take much pains for this section but those who are totally new should practice atleast a few writing tasks else they would be for a surprise in the actual tests.

Finally I would like to tell you my score in GRE. After all the preparation which I did, I got 1540
(Q-780 VA-760 AW- 4.5) If you have any doubts you can get in touch with me. I would be glad to help. Tomorrow i will write about the TOEFL iBT test which I had to take as the part of applying to the universities.