Reboot

Oh well. Xavier's reopens tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to butchering the profs again. Mbwhahahahahahahahahaha !
And IE7 is finally done. And its actually GOOD ! Just add on someting like flashblock, and I'll use it, and nothing else. This ongoing browser war seems to be, to me, at least, obsolete. IE and Firefox are now so similar, that saying something like " Get this for better browsing" or " Other assorted blah blah" is foolish. Why do these people not devote their time to building better websites is beyond me. Right now, there's a kind of.. for the lack of a better word... an almost.. communal divide between users.... Firefox/IE, Windows/Linux, Mac/PC; some are choosing Win+Apple (!!!) insteadd of the usual wintel combination. Its totally meaningless.. write one article, say, supporting Windows.. and you'll get a hundred responses from aggrieved Linux users, some of them making excellent points, others being framed with suspictions of your ancestry, sexual habits and cranial capaciy... WHY ?!!!
Its JUST a bloody comp. PEBCAC. Look outside the confines of your screen for a minute.

- Debayan.

bbbbBooM ! Pyromaniac Paradise !

Had a greeeeeat Diwali... Ahem.. Now Hear This : I have made a new record : Of lighting six (6. Get that : !@#$%SIX ) Tubris with one (that's 1. O.N.E.) fuljhari. Woo Hooooooo.
Important note to self : Beat up shopkeeper who sold defective rangmashals. Bloody thing burst while I was holding it.
Well, all that hullabaloo with the police running around, announcing that firecrackers emitting sounds above a certain intensity were banned.. along with threats of arrest turned out to be... well.. gas . The puja organisers had been specifically asked to warn everyone not to buy any illegal firecrackerss by the police. Sadly, the evening found the police selling the same to anybody with a few rupees to spare (apparently, they had siezed a large quantity of "shhobdobajis" from somewhere.. and some people saw a business opportunity).
Yen-yi-ve, I am swaying right now.. I haven't slept all night.. and I have yet to open seven out of the twelve packets of bajis that I had bought.
Burn ! Burn ! Burn !
Mbwhahahahahahahahahahaha (cough....choke) Ahem..
Wishing you all a Happy Diwali,
Debayan Gupta.

X-ray eyes.. and now Invisibility !

Remember that evil piece of ^&$* called Snell's law ? Well, finally, I am pleased to say : He was wrong. Take that, Bijon, I told you so !(Even if I was not necessarily thinking of um... whatever : He was wrong !).
All known materials, tilll now, had a positive refractive index...
"But scientists from the University of California at San Diego described in Friday's issue of Science a strange composite that has a negative index, essentially reversing Snell's law. This new mix of fiberglass and copper rings and wires (see image) is far more than a curiosity, the researchers say. It may very well lead to novel electromagnetic devices and even perfect lenses, unhindered by diffraction limits and thus capable of focusing light in unforeseen ways.
Sheldon Schultz and his colleagues produced the class of composites last year, predicting at the time that it would defy a number of ordinary properties, including the Doppler effect. Their recent demonstration is only the first of what they hope will be several to reveal the composites' unorthodox behavior. In this case, they showed that microwaves—at the same frequency as those used in police radar guns—emerged from the material in the exact opposite direction from that predicted by Snell's law. Next they hope to extend the material's powers to focusing visible light. "
And a few months after this, along came the nearest thing to an invisibility device that we have today...
Okay.. first things first : these devices are made out of metamaterials; what the bloody F#^$ are metamaterials, you ask ? "A metamaterial is a composite structure, built of metal rings and wires embedded in fiberglass, that makes light behave in weird ways. Metamaterials can be used, for example, to bend light sharply or to focus it to a higher resolution than is normally possible. More recently, researchers pointed out that the technology should make it possible to construct spheres or cylinders capable of cloaking an object almost perfectly from detection by a single wavelength of light. When light strikes a metamaterial it causes the electrons in the metal pieces to vibrate; these vibrations in turn affect the speed of the light. A metamaterial shell with the right gradient of metal elements should cause light of a particular wavelength to wrap around the shell's interior. "
Soon, they hope to be able to conquer the challenge of completely cloaking an object from the visible frequency... ahh the prospects of such a device ! Are you pondering what I'm pondering ?

- Rasevaudez, Debayan.

AHA ! Intelligent life does Exist !

Its True ! I saw the whole thing !

Acronyms

The net, it seems, is flooded with more acronyms than my ram can hold, and so, I am listing some of the ones which come to mind ...

• AFAICS = As far as I can see
• BTW = By the way
• FYI = For your information
• HAND = Have a nice day
• IMHO = In my humble opinion (egoless)
• IMAO = In my arrogant opinion (e.g.o.)
• IMNSHO = In my not-so humble opinion (a lot of ego)
• IMO = In my opinion (not much ego)
• IOU = I OWN you. (NOT I owe you, not when you're on the net.)
  
• MYOB = Mind your own business
• OTOH = On the other hand
• PEBCAC = Problem exists between chair and computer
• PEBCAK = Problem exists between chair and keyboard
• PMFJI = Pardon me for jumping in
• RTFM = Read the ___ manual
• SO = Significant other
• YHBT = You have been trolled
• YHL = You have lost

More ? You want more ? Ok. I'll Give you more ! Here you go , Master Twist.

DNA computing is on a roll...

Remember all those darwazas from Sudip's class ? Well.. loook out Silicon Valley - Researchers are developing DNA molecules to mimic the logical operations carried out in silicon-based computers as a way to improve biomedical technologies or aid in assembling nano-size building blocks into new materials. In one approach, a series of wells is filled with hairpin-shaped strands of DNA, called gates, which respond to inputs in ways chosen by the designers. A group had already shown that such a system, called a molecular array of YES and AND gates, or MAYA, can play a game of tic-tac-toe restricted to certain moves. (quoted)
The fact that DNA computing works at such a level, considering that the science is still, more or less, in its infancy, is proof of the immense potential of the subject.

Pheew.

Long time no see, eh ?
Oh well. I'm back now after a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, and I'm here to stay.
Debayan Gupta is in the building.

2000

2000 visits to this page. I am very excited ( NOT !) .
Anyway, what's really funny was that I was going to post something to do with 2000 AD, and I suddenly see that my hit counter reads exactly 2000. Scary, eh ? Oh well, here's the link : dabludabludablu .
As for Prof. Nath's ideas about unix security : HUBBA HUBBA . But, realio, trulio, the Openwall Project is one of the best ventures I have seen - it has information, solutions, and advice - all of which are always available on the internet, but rarely accurate : this site, however, seems to be an exception, and has a lot of help for the half-nerd techie.

India Censored

India is My country. I love my country. That being said, Nuke 'em ! Nuke the bloody bastards, I say ! Politicians from our Great country who cannot distinguish a monitor from a cpu and know nothing whatsoever of the internet, suddenly decided that they were going to follow in the footsteps of Chinese idiocy, and begin political censorship of websites, to " help curb terrorism ". Nothing has been done, as of yet, about the mobile phones and SIM cards sold illegally to the terrorists responsible for the Mumbai blasts. Buuuut, apparently, the terrorists were using not email, not any groups or communities, nor any messaging services, but blogs to exchange confidential information. So, our government, in its infinite wisdom ( if you are a member of the government of India, I shall explain the previous phrase to you, as you are obviously unable to comprehend simple logical concepts - that was sarcasm, do you understand ? ) decided to block access to blogspot, geocities and typad. The morons running the ISP companies here are still tight mouthed about the whole thing, at first denying that any censoring at all has been done, then, after some persuasion ( read : bribing and threatning them ) they said that they were "merely following Department of Telecom orders which came last week", and because they did not have "the capability to selectively ban webpages" ( which is still against the principles of freedom of speech ), they banned entire domains. And this coming from the world's biggest Democracy. And the origin of one of the largest numbers of computer experts in the world. And a country which prides itself for tolerance. Our politicians should not be allowed to breed. This whole fiasco has become nothing less than an idiotic joke, and I do not like jokes of that variety. I hereby put forward the proposition that all Members of Parliament be required to take an IQ test, where, they will be asked to step down, if their score is less than half of that of a severely retarded mule ( Chimpanzees are much too intelligent to be used in this comparision.) . In other news, we had a lot of rain today - and Salt Lake was flooded, and I was late for class. News the Second : Xavier's College is off on the 21st and 24th ! YAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHOOooooooooooooo !
And, Finally, News the Third : I was so annoyed about this internet censorship nonsense that I have actually not read a book today ! Gasp ! Call an Ambulance, somebody ! I think I see a light... nope, my bad - no light. Why ? Because the rreplacement that the KMC had put up for the defective lamp post light bulb in front of my house after countless complaints, has gone Fudut ! Phew ! They had me worried for a moment there - competence and KMC are prctically antonyms. Oh, well.

Toodles, Debayan.

WTF ?

PLEASE READ THIS. THIS IS IMPORTANT, AND NOT THE USUAL YADA YADA, as Google puts it.

I was looking around on Orkut, and I found this group : We Hate India
This community is horrible !
Listen to this :

The sole purpose of this community isn't meant to offend India...its about making few statements very loud & clear to them...its about having a group of people who have enemity for India just coz of its oppressive & hostile approach...no matter how much proofs & justifications you bring up for there are many things which can't be denied & they won't be...you can flood anyone's scrapbook by talking trash & by giving up false news & stuff but it won't make any difference...i don't believe on any friendship nor do i believe on enemity but India's inclined towards doing it & i can't see that happening...though i didn't do much beneficial for my country but i tried to refrain myself from supporting indians & in embracing their Kaleidoscope culture...its not about hating Indian people & their country...its about hating all those things which are against Pakistan...against me!!!

That pissed me off. And then I read this :

" reason of enemity agaianst islam
Please do read them at least once as this might be helpful for everyone.
According to my limited understanding, these are two major reasons for the war against Islam:
1) The religion has a Holy book (Qur’an) that has not and will never change. It is obviously timeless guidance while being authentic and divine.No other religion has this privilege.
2) The stories of Lives of Prophets - referred in Qur’an (and Sunnah) are factual and Allah has given us the summaries of infinite practical life lessons to be learnt by referring them in Qur’an. This gives us an edge as compared to the followers of any other religion.
If we think deeply and contemplate on how would the enemies of Islam try to win the war against a divine religion??
) Conspiracy Theory Objective One: Change Muslims' way of thinking and try to take them away from their Holy Scripture.
How? Introduce other languages and take them away from their most powerful tool - LANGUAGE.Once the unchangeable book is translated - it won't stay unchangeable anymore!
Arabic is the deepest language in the world with a maximum number of verb forms as compared to any other language in the world.Result of this depth in verb forms is that we cannot accurately translate it to its full meaning into any other language.
As we don't know what we are praying for (as it is in Arabic) and we have our own language that we understand; our prayers don't have the required impact.
Allah wants us to understand what we are praying for!
Most of us don't really know what we are saying during the prayers - resultant is that the Salaah has become a mechanical thing instead of reflection & contemplation. Crush india 12/07/2006 19:312) Conspiracy Theory Objective Two: Create fear of this world in their minds so that they forget the lessons from Lives of Prophets.
How? Control people's minds through media. Everyone should start living in a fantasy while following the media - fabricated news etc..
3) Conspiracy Theory Objective Three: Make them weak and disunite them by making them fight with each other.
How? Create illusion, introduce fear and use "Divide & Conquer" by creating more and more sects.
How to Create Sects? Just produce another variation of translation of Qur’an. Change a few minute details through playing with words.
4) Conspiracy Theory Objective Four: Make them the Target for Hatred by General Public:
How? Introduce con-leaders and con- religious icons. Show them as terrorists so that the actual problem creators gain the sympathy of general public through fabricated media campaigns. Crush india 12/07/2006 19:31Simple Thing to Understand: Who has gained the most benefit (and still getting it) out of so called Muslim extremists?
Who gained the most out of 9/11, 7/7 and Iraq etc?
How? Create illusion, introduce fear and use "Divide & Conquer" by creating more and more sects. Take away the vision of life from Muslims by keeping them targeted.
All the above mentioned conspiracies and millions more mean nothing and cannot hurt us if we hold on strong to Allah's book and to the authentic Sunnah & Hadith.
Answer to most of the questions lies in this simple first steps (towards a journey of million miles):1) Understand what we pray (and ask for) during the Salaah2) Start learning Arabic language and learn/understand Qur’an to its fullest meaning - instead of getting deviated through inaccurate translations.3) If we understand what we are saying during Salaah - half of our problems will be addressed right away.4) Stop believing in media to the fullest. They are business men with hidden agenda (and foreign funding) and they have to sell - one way or the other.5) Always fear Allah and keep asking for help from Allah.6) Don't get bogged down with not important and useless discussions - rather try to solve the problem and suggest solutions to doable activities. "

I LOVE the freedom of speech. And, euphemisms aside, I HATE these kind of bastards. Listen up, citizens of Pakistan - I know a total of three Pakistanis, and am acquainted with one more; and all of them are wonderful, wonderful people - a lot of people in India actively hate all Pakistanis - Why, you ask ? Because of these few, who make a bad name for the rest of you, and for the rest of us, as well- no external observer would feel positively about the human species after having read this sort of thing.
I will not go into the Islam part of it - I personally believe that most religions do more harm than good - I do not care if someone believes in Allah, Christ or Krishna, as long as they are good people. However, it is these things that make others hate Islam - I confess, that after having read the latter portion of the text, I had a momentary bout of " Nuke the bastards" rush, befor my brain kicked in. So, please - I would ask you to report this group as bogus , but I like my freedom, so all I ask of you is to go, see and judge for yourself.

Most people are just really, really stupid. The rest are just bastards.

- Debayan Gupta.

00.7, Beta

Have you noticed how all softwares are "beta" versions nowdays ? Anyway, I was searching for something to remove a trojan that had *somehow, I know not how* gotten into my computer, and I found this site : http://www.knujon.com/ - It has a lot of excellent advice for newbies , as well as technical information for advanced users.

Ghonta.

And That's All, Folks

Realio, its trulio ! And now, its been proved as well : Men are more humourous than women. So, the next time your punchline fails to KO someone, instead, resulting in an exasperated eye-roll, it might not be a reflection on your material.
The study was conducted by a group of researchers ( who, according to RD, were laughing their heads off at the fact that while other researchers at the same lab were toiling nightly over malignant spleens, they were studying comedy ) at the Stanford University School of Medicine ( you can almost hear the Capital Letters, eh ?) .
See Here : Mbwhahahaha. The study results boil down to the fact that males are usually more optimistic about humour - when a funny cartoon was displayed, the females showed increased activity in the "reward centre" of the brain. When the cartoon was not funny, the activity in the area went bact to its normal, lower level. In men, however, this default level is much higher, and remained unaffected when the cartoon was funny; but, when the cartoon was not funny, the level actually declined - ie., the men expected the joke to be funny, and were disappointed when it was not, while the women expected the joke to be unamusing, and only relented when it was irrefutably hilarious . As it turns out, it is true that females tend to over-analyze things, instead of just taking the simplest solution that's staring at you in the face.

Or kut rut

Joined orkut today afer some of my friends convinced ( coerced) me. Well, I duly filled in the forms, until I came to the " Upload your Photo Section" . I tried to upload this foto :

Annd after 23 minutes, my screen was still showing this :

I tried uploading photos to other sites, and got more trouble ( uploading the two photos above took seven tries - and this, on a broadband connection). Note to self : check connection. Curiously, my download speed is unaffected. Oh well.

Tried to access a russian website today. The site informed me that I was not authorized to view this site ( which happens often ) but the message that they displayed was quite ... inspirational : If you are American, Go to Hell ( or America, if you prefer ). If not, sorry for the inconvenience. Shit happens.

In other news, KMC has actually replaced the light on the lamp-post across my house. I am still recovering from the shock.

Festina Lente, Debayan.

Ext. : For RB, check out his Orkut profile...

Water, water everywhere

We had a lot of rain here today, though I am reliably informed that it did not rain in AH block, which is less than a mile away. Perhaps Mr.Rob McKenna was passing by...

On another ( and more jarringly obnoxious ) note, I have the great pleasure(?) of announcing to the world that I have discovered yet another sub-species of that tribe-most-horrendously-evil, that group-most-sadistic, with few exceptions, the Teacher ( Torturer Extraordinare, Achiever of Countless Horrible Evils and Rampages ). This new genum seems to be exceptionally excitable, and liable to explode into action ( action = reiteration of the "importance of discipline ", which, apparently, is the "only thing in Xavier's".) and inappropriate ( and rather... unrealistic - it is impolite to call your teacher an out-and-out liar) flashbacks in the middle of teaching ( especially if it is something important ) .
Exempli Gratia : " In my time, there were some second year students. ( WOW !) There is a rule not to play in the field. They were tossing a tennis ball. Father came and cancelled their classes for two months." - In this highly condensed version, I have omitted the countless repititions, the grammar ( ie., lack therof ), the numerous "okay ?"s and the vigorous hand movements ( I know that the last one is hypocritical, but come on, this guy was practically jumping up and down ! ). Anyway, this anecdote is apparently proof of the importance of obeying the rules ( and not of the dwindling sanity of our Principal, or what is more probable, the teacher's lack of ability to make up a believable lie.).
Oh well. Note to aspiring artists : I do NOT look like an electrocuted wombat with blue striped buck teeth and orange polka dotted fish-scalesque beard.
On yet another note, My neighbour has bought.. let me see... yes, seven pieces of underwear, and apparently wishes to display them, and so, has strung them up outside my window. I am currently running up huge electric bills because of running my air conditioning twenty four hours a day. Any suggestions ?

Classes Commence

Well, Dr. Nath seems to be a good teacher, although he was just introducing some algos today.
Note to self : Get the chap a decent blackboard eraser - the one he currently uses - to great effect, but rather in the opposite direction; the duster makes more prominent marks than the chalk.
Dr.P.K.C. also seems to be quite competent - although he keeps insisting that " Electronics is at the hart of every science ", and seems to have a lot of respect ( read:obession) for someone named J.S.Kilby (Jack Kilby) .
The Physics teacher - S. Palit, I think his name was, turned out to be a bit of a... hmmmm how do I say this politely... um... Oh what the heck ! He was, based upon my first impression, a complete bastard, and a possible winner of the Bangali Dhandosh Prize . The imbecile put nearly 120 of us in a room with seating for 70, and then started teaching : his voice is very - Tendulkaresque, without the slight raspyness - so few of us could hear him, and he then started to take a rollcall, sending people out if they did not respond ( one guy forgot his roll number ). Mbleh !
Enough of this nonsense ! Mails, people, mails - Dibyayan you Sharma ! Mail me or face the wrath of the ( I will throw no titles at you )...

On Another note, Look Out Superman,

I can see through things too...

Seeing is believing -- researchers explain 'x-ray specs' effect

An annual exhibition showcasing the best of UK science and technology this year includes a novel optical effect pioneered by physicists at Imperial College London.

[...]

Mbwhahahahahahahahahahaha.... it's only a matter of time before I get the rest of your powers, and flood the world with mutated cheese and Sharma Action ( inaction ?) figures ! Mbwhahahahahahahahahahahaha !

Note : No, I am not smoking anything, but with the fumes (~~~) around here, I don't really need to.

Toodles, Debayan.