The Ides of August

I had a dreadful August the 15th.I woke up with rebellion on my mind...As the nation celebrated its 62 years of independence from the British I was left wondering what we had achieved with this independence. A fair bit of contemplation later...

Patriotism

Patriotism is such an over-hyped emotion nowadays. Patriotism for the majority of Indians involves not missing any India- Pakistan cricket matches and cussing at every single Pakistani and their mothers. I am talking about you- atleast the majority among you who can so easily put imaginary lines on maps between you and another human being. Who gave you the idea that you being on this side of an imaginary line makes you any better than the guy on the other side??I am pretty sure your heart brimmed with patriotic pride and hatred for Pakistanis when u saw the bullet ridden soldier in the last throes of his life pushing an anti-tank mine under a Paki tank in some crappy Bollywood formula film. The sad part about the whole sequence is you and me( I absolutely loved the film when it released). For you patriotism goes hand in hand with irrational pride, hatred for your neighboring countries and also some weird idea that it is your duty as an Indian to make sure India becomes the most powerful country in the world even at the cost of other countries and their citizens. You look upon them as objects, not people. Their loss doesn't concern you as long your country's flag flies the highest. 

Back to the past

We are walking backwards into the age of darkness and chaos although the passage of time gives us the impression of moving forward. Don't believe me??Open your eyes and look around you-political dynasties reminiscent of the days of the Raj, communalism and regionalism at their peaks. I hate to look at what we have made of ourselves- meek factory produced guinea pigs whose one overpowering aim in life is self promotion and the prime mover for any action being selfishness. Most people can't seem to think beyond themselves.  

Individual freedom

I am not an anarchist,not yet. I still have faith there can exist a government whose only reason for existence is to provide for the common good, to ensure all citizens are given adequate opportunities to make a living and choose a path of their liking and interest and to express fully his/her views without fear. A government should not exist for the continuance of the government or the power structure itself . The nation is not greater than any individual living in it and nobody's rights should ever be curtailed for the continuation of the power structure or the system as it is so euphemistically referred to nowadays. The duty of a nation is not towards its territorial integrity but towards its citizens I see lots of columnists lamenting the fact that the major problem with India is that everybody seems to have an opinion on everything. I say they should rightly have an opinion and they should voice it out too but not at the cost of the next person.

The System

The President of India is no greater than I am. He/she is not the ultimate authority on what happens to me, I am. I decide what to say and what to do whenever I want to. I am all too aware of my rights as a free human and I am capable of fighting for them and this is how I choose to do it. The system called the administration of this college is of no consequence to me. It is not above me. It exists for me and not for the continuance of itself. Recently the system called the hostel section decided that it was above the right of free speech of an individual and threw out a friend of mine for speaking out his mind. On enquiring we were told that he challenged the system and hence had to be cast off and his punishment will only be revoked when the "powers that be" feel like it/ have had their powerlust satisfied, when they deem the poor guy broken enough for him never to raise another whimper of protest. 

The system decided that we should not be allowed to have the power of self determination and hence the system revoked elections in this college. The system will probably exact its revenge for dissent one way or the other. but then the choice is simple. Would I rather be meek and deny myself and stay silent or do I do what I know is right...

Am I free? Hell I am....Are you??

p.s One of those Renesa rejects...dint find it cohesive enuf...but i guess on my blog anything goes

Economics Explained-Part 2

Deflation on the other hand...is a lot more fun

p.s part of the kaun hai dumb making videos...chk out kaun hai dumb if u havnt seen it yet....

Economics Explained-Part 1

Inflation sucks...big time!!!

L337 Speak

It’s a new year of college and its round about time when most you make your new hardware buying decisions. Traditionally it’s a toss up between a desktop and a laptop with a laptop increasingly making more sense with Wi-Fi in the campus and hostels. But before you actually make your buying decision I'd like to introduce you to a new and exciting series of laptops called Nettops or Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC). These are low power consuming, very portable devices with good battery life. And then again it is not exactly the Jesus gadget either-downsides are small screens (typically 7", 8.9" or 10") and average processor and graphics performance. But then look at this way; if all you do with your computer is browse the web, do a bit of office apps, watch movies, listen to music and play minesweeper the rest of the time how much more performance do you really need??

Desktops have clearly outlived their use. Most laptops nowadays can do all that a desktop can do at a very small premium in price unless of course you are a hardcore gamer on a budget in which case a desktop is your only choice. But for the rest of us a nettop makes a lot of sense. The whole craze started off with Asus launching their Eee-PC some time last year. Nettops existed even before in the form of the One laptop per child (OLPC) platform but it was woefully underpowered and targeted at a whole different audience to adequately capture the imagination of the mainstream market. The Eee-pc changed the rules of the game. Now you had an ultraportable that came at a throw-away price of about $400(prices have since reduced to about $300-roughly 13k Indian rupees- on some models) and which did most of the things that most people do on their PCs satisfactorily and also came with the added advantage of being light and portable with very good battery life. It was an instant hit. With that success most other major manufacturers have jumped onto the fray with increasingly better products with better value and features. Most of the initial thunder of the Eee-PCs has since been stolen and now you have everybody from a Lenovo to apna desi HCL and everyone in between peddling nettops.

Of course an exhaustive review of nettops is not possible within the confines of this tech page and with my limited resources but if you are really interested in picking one up I would suggest checking out the MSI Windbook and Dell Inspirion mini-9. The ones on offer by Acer and Lenovo are also great buys. Nettops make for good second computers as well. All of them come with wi-fi inbuilt(duh!!) and some of them like the Eee Pc and the Dell machine have inbuilt HSDPA which means that when 3g does become a reality you can actually put in a 3g compatible SIM inside and have truly mobile internet wherever you go. Here are a few pointers you could keep in mind if you are planning to buy a nettop

1. Most nettops come with an option of an SSD or a harddrive. SSDs generally give anywhere between 4gb and 16gb of storage and hard-drives 80-120gb of storage. But SSDs are more reliable, faster and consume less power. They also boot up faster. I recommend taking the SSD route if it’s going to be your secondary computer or the hard drive version if it’s going to be your primary computer. Alternatively you can also buy the SSD version and plugin a portable hard drive if you need more storage. Most Nettops also come with a free online storage account which is a great idea.

2. Most of these Nettops come with options on batteries. I suggest you go for the most number of cells. It will increase weight a bit but then you don’t have to fight over charging slots in the canteen. A 4-cell battery should give you about 3.5-4 hours of usage under normal conditions.

3. Windows or Linux-The only reason I choose Windows over Linux is because it runs all my games. If you are not going to be playing age of empires or NFS on this (although you can if you want to) then go for the linux version. They are custom built Linux distros with user friendliness kept in mind-much more user friendly than Windows in some cases. The Windows version is more expensive but then these are the only devices for which you can legally still get Win XP preinstalled- so if you are in the mood for some windows love go ahead.

4. Some fully loaded Nettops will cost you close to 21k which is the price of an entry level 15.4 inch laptop. But then you have to understand that both of them are different classes of machines and for different uses. The nettop is lighter, more portable, is designed to run much longer and you look a lot cooler using a slick new nettop than a 15.4” piece of crapware. Everybody has a laptop these days but a Nettop is for the truly connected netizen.

Am I using one??No...But if you ever buy one please let me know so that I can play around it with for a while and then I'll be grateful to you for life and maybe...just maybe even let you touch my iPhone when I get one.

Thy Geekdom come. Amen!!!

Renesa Editorial

“The sands of time are steeped in new beginnings.”- Salman Rushdie in Grimus

It took longer than we expected it would. And we could not do all that we hoped to do with this opening issue of Renesa but there are certainly some changes-we have come up with a new concept of having a cover story in every issue. An online forum for Renesa is also in the works and should be up and running imminently. Of late we seem to have a crunch on talent. Where are all the good writers that we used to have in abundance?? We are confident of tiding over this for this year with a little of hard work thrown in but the situation for the future does look grim.

It is not anybody’s fault though. We are seeing a paradigm shift in the junta of the college in line with the changes happening to the college itself. We are finally looking more like a technical institute than ever before so much so that some of us who have been conditioned towards the easygoing life of mass bunks, the hectic politics of college elections and frequent events for the literary inclined have been hit with a feeling of obsolescence.

There have been a lot of changes both internal and external in the college. The removal of state quotas has brought in a different class of students into the college. The much vaunted multicultural social fabric of the college has taken a dent with little or no representation from certain states but then seen in the light of meritocracy it is probably a good decision. Other good things happening to the college include a sea change in the placements. More students are opting for core companies and we are increasingly being visited by good core companies as well. We hope this trend continues leading to slowly weeding out the software companies. This is discussed in detail in our cover story for this issue.

The college is seeing more intakes of M.Tech and Phd students which is definitely a good sign signalling our shift from just an engineering college to a research focussed institute. We hope the new crowd takes interest in the activities of the college but they can hardly be blamed for the college this year round has been pretty dry in terms of events. No I am not referring to the technical events. We had enough and more of those and as if just to drive home the point we have an addition this year. Where did all the jams, quizzes and generally fun events go off to? The final year is the only batch which has seen a normal year of college with Kashish et all. Even the occasional couple in the college is seen hanging out in the library clearing each others doubts. Other visible changes include new equipments being brought into the new gymnasium which has been around for more than a year. The stone benches near the main gate have also been reduced to rubbles. Rumour is that it was demolished because it was not sending the right messages to the girls in the college. Other items on the list banned for sending wrong signals include the notorious morning walkers in shorts, Valentines Day celebrations, rock shows etc.

The college has lost a lot of the colour and vigour of years passed by. The college runs the risk of the first years mistaking this languid atmosphere in the college to be the norm and graduating as boring white collar engineers with perfect technical knowledge( with weird ties and megalomaniac dogs for pets called dogberts). The students’ council and the committees connected to it including the LnD and CHRD are clearly over their heydays and have mostly been rendered vestigial. The jam packed main seminar halls, a feature of most evenings in an SVNIT of yore are nowadays used only for placement purposes. The once popular music club, the DJ nights after every exam have all become distant memories. Only technical committees like Drishti seem to have a future for first years never seem to get enough of radio controlled toys. Tough anti ragging rules have meant that the Drishti committee has not yet been able to brief the first years about the KVPY and that probably means a hit on the usually rich haul of selections managed by our college every year.

Well the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel may come with this year’s student council selections. Hope for the 9 pointers we have this year to be as good as that of last year and maybe you'll get to see the GS and the CS for the first and last time on the last day of Sparsh. Everything’s good, Everything’s fine @ SVNIT