Radio Wars or how to start a fight without much ado

Ok. So you have a like 15 GBs of MP3s stored up on your hard disk. And you have listened to each song thrice and know all the lyrics by heart. So what do you do then? Start a hostel radio. Download and install the latest shoutcast plugins and server.Enqueue all the songs in winamp and push play.

There but who knows about it?

There is always MSExchange. Bill Gates’ beauty cum spammers’ dream come true. So you shoot off batch mails telling everybody what an awesome RJ you are and then wait for people to sign up. The names Radio K.A.O.S. All he can do is shamelessly rip off Roger Waters.

Oooh. Still no load? No problem. H. Shirouzu has just the thing for you. Its called IPMessenger. Every five minutes you ping the junta with messages like
For all the lovebirds: A Happy Valentine’s Day
Coming up Rock Hour
Bryan adams..and BOn jovi…just for u all!!!

Ok. We know no one wants your radio when we can choose our own songs. No. The gentleman insists. Then all the hatred goes public. Everyone lets loose all pent up venom and some want to hang him too. Oooh.
This is what my good friends think about it.

Listener

This gets too much for me. I can no longer chat with my good friend sitting two rooms away over the same IPMessenger. So much for technology. Sigh! Bill Gates and his ilk rule my life.

Song for my mood: Move by Miles Davis.

Random Fun or how to make your life enjoyable @ BSchool

Just Past Midnight, ground floor boys hostel

ME (Enter stage right, walk up beneath first floor railings look up and shout): Mansoooooooooooor. (Repeat thrice)

UNKNOWN FEMALE VOICE 1 (A tinny tone): Mannnnnnnnsooooooor
UNKNOWN FEMALE VOICE 2 (huskier): Mannnnnnnnsooooooor
RANDOM PERSON 1 (shouts): Mansoooooooooorrrr
RANDOM PERSON 2 (shouts): Mansoooooooooorrrr
PRANESH (looks up, shouts): Maaannnnnnnnsooooooooooorrrr.

MANSUR pops out like a beaver from his den. Looks dazed. Leans over the railing.

MANSUR: What is it?
ME: Which movie are you watching?
MANSUR: I’m doing work man, not watching any movie.

KARY (formerly unknown female voice 1): What about my write ups?
MANSUR: Huh!! (leans over a bit more.)

GORDON (in Mansur’s ears): Mansooooooor.
ME: Mansur, don’t jump. Pleeease.

A sizable crowd has collected. Unknown Female Voice 2(shrieks). Verghese comes down to the first floor. Everyone eggs him on to jump.

PRANESH (Opening his arms): I’ll hold you.

Verghese climbs over the railing and jumps. Pranesh moves away. Jandhyala steps in, but puts a hand between Verghese’s legs to catch him.

VERGHESE (screwing up his face): Dude, that’s not the way to hold a person!

All hold their sides, laughing. One sleepy soul, woken up comes out to check the fun. All disperse. He makes a sad face and goes back to sleep.

I come back to my room.

Song for the situation: ‘Round Midnight by Miles Davis.

Garota de Ipanema or the girl we all dream of : )

The mp3 player goes ting-dun-dun-bring-ung-ung… i know its my favourite bossa nova tune …
Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes composed this little gem, and a guy no less than Frank Sinatra covered it.
And its also the song that set me off on the discovery of bossa nova.

Olha que coisa mais linda
mais cheia de graça
É ela menina que vem e que passa
nun doce balanço, caminho do mar…

Moça do corpo dourado, do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que un poema
é a coisa mais linda
que eu já vi passar…

Ah! Porque estou tão sozinho
Ah! Porque tudo é tão triste
Ah! A beleza que existe

A beleza que não é só minha
que também passa sozinha

Ah! Se ela soubesse
que quando ela passa
o mundo sorrindo
se enche de graça
e fica mais lindo
por causa do amor
por causa do amor
por causa do amor

I’d trust the reader to google for the english translation.
Incidentally the lyrics are based on a real girl called Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (yeah that’s how she looked!), better known as Helô, who walked along the Rua Montenegro on the way to the beach (and to her school), and was the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso Bar which Jobim and Moraes also frequented. Interesting!

And then Stan Getz joined Jobim and the Gilberto couple on tour in the US which sparked off the bossa nova craze.

Had to write this. More on jazz and how I feel about it in some other post.

Academic Rigour

The academic rigour is really getting to people here.
Placement season and approaching exams combined with dry runs have made us quite susceptible to this disease. Usually it acquires epidemic proportions but generally vanishes after exams are over. This periodic disease has only one known cure, excision of the diseased individuals from their surroundings. It is also to some extent contagious.

Symptoms include but are not limited to:

• Asking stupendously idiotic questions in class (these generally qualify for the Sayal Saab Rolling Trophy)
• Sucking up to professors and asking for probable examination questions
• Camping out in the library
• Mailing professors and other arbit people with questions like, “how can one get an Excellent rating in evaluation of rigour of submission” (Yeah, someone actually wrote that)
• Spamming people to ask doubts over the local mail exchange

And then there are people who claim to Think Vast and accentuate the academic rigour. These are the people who will send you detailed guidelines as to submission of assignments and the evaluation criteria, especially in response to above the mails.

Here is a sample

a few first level observations are:
– very original work with variation of language vis-à-vis the case study language (How about French?)
– beyond macro 1st level remarks
– having the Gestaldt view (or Gestalt psychology?)
– making observations that connect up with the academic concept of the case study

certain things are obvious:
– submission before deadline (if possible, make an early submission as this would kill any perceived impression ‘copying has been done’) (If you are so smart they why go by the perceptions?)
– a certain minimum length of analysis just as a certain maximum
– NOT sharing ur work with others (US has the academic culture of no one sharing his/her work as evaluations determine scholarships etc, in fact seniors also do not help; in India the smart students are actually dumb and act generous, though collaboration is absent in many Indian B-schools too…after all, the karmic experience of making a submission (aren’t we getting a bit too spiritual here?) on one’s OWN was the real learning, copying someone else’s work and submitting the same was sidestepping the true purpose of enrolling for a two year course)

I have just decided that I’m too bored to follow all these complex instructions. So I’ll just forget to submit all these assignments. And if you didn’t know, the purpose of all these assignments was just to prepare us for better class discussion.

Now if someone is so jobless as to sit and evaluate all these assignments and then give a grade like “VERY GOOD” with the comment “seem to have copied”

The ending comments on the message titled “Guidelines on Excellence in Submissions” are

– just as a chess player who can visualize 5-8 moves ahead without physically touching the pieces, or a sudoku player able to imagine multiple entries without actually penciling them in, same way a large RAM holding the entire case study generates quality analysis replete with insights

Which essentially means that we are big computers.

Song for the mood
Peter Gabriel: I Grieve.

RFID’s in … and out ?

Breaking news

Dutch RFID e-Passport cracked
That’s what has been reported at Endgadget.
RFID is an interesting concept, and there’s some amount of hype too, what with Wal-Mart implementing it and dragging all its vendors along too.
And now the news is that US is going to go ahead with the faulty technology. More fun and games for the terror mongers.

While on the topic of RFIDs, I had this harebrained idea for implementing RFID for our placements. That way you could track which student was where at what time. But as Pradeep pointed out, the RFID chip might be floating down a sewer line and we would be frantically tracking the student at the treatment plant.

But I’m not giving up.

Song for me: Sympathy by Goo Goo Dolls

Piracy and Litigation

This sounds like a reversed version of the Stockholm Syndrome. With all music companies going behind illegal downloaders of music, Terry McBride’s is actually sympathising with David Greubel. RIAA is out to fine him and Nettwerk Music Group, whose CEO is Terry McBride has stood behind him. Nettwerk Music Group has agreed to pay the total expense of all legal fees as well as any fines should the family lose the case against the RIAA. Funnily, one of the songs targetted is Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne, a Nettwerk management client. More on that here
Nettwerk is the largest privately owned music company in Canada. I agree with McBride when he says that, “suing music fans is not the solution, it’s the problem”.

Thanks to Deepa for bringing this to my notice!

Song for my mood: Reflections of Passion by Yanni.