Title goes here...

About 5 months to go to the Joint Entrance Examination and I have barely started preparing. I think it's the over-confidence from the 41 points I got in IB. The first step towards correcting a flaw is recognizing it as a flaw. Having recognized what's stopping me, I expect to start preparing genuinely soon.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is time management. Despite being under the supervision of relatives, the absence of the authoritative imposition of my parents makes it unproblematic for me to veer off track and play a game of Angry Birds in the middle of the derivation of the internal section formula. Being an alien course I can't even plan out an effective time table. How do you create a time table for three subjects in a day anyway?!!

I guess it'd be wise to get back to that derivation instead of sitting here and trying to convince myself that I'm a blogger!! :p

Diwali - The Festival of Lights

Diwali, according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar, is celebrated on the full-moon night between mid-October and mid-November. Also known as the 'Festival of Lights', Diwali is celebrated by the lighting of traditional clay lamps (diyas) and bursting fireworks. Although everybody celebrates the festival, sadly, not everyone is aware of the true significance of this holy festival.

The return of Lord Rama, after 14 years of 'vanvaas' (banishment), to the city of Ayodhya was celebrated by the lighting of 'diyas' - hence the name 'The Festival of Lights'. However, the spiritual significance of Diwali is the triumph of good over evil. Literally, this is portrayed through the slaying of Ravan by Lord Rama. This symbolically refers to the light of knowledge expelling ignorance which leads to knowledge of the oneness of everything. Diwali, in fact, is celebration of this self-enlightenment.

Farewell Steve Jobs

About a month after the initial rumors of Steve Job’s failing health (pancreatic cancer to be precise), the hallways of Apple Inc. have lost their animation. A group of dementors swooped down from Azkaban and sucked the living soul out of the world’s leading smartphone vendor. And Tim Cook isn’t doing much to help the situation. After his excessively boring presentation at the unveiling of the iPhone 4S, it is impossible to imagine that Apple Inc., as a company, will maintain the high standards set by Steve Jobs. I always felt that he was the company. He thought of a concept, put it on paper, developed a prototype, perfected his idea and finally gave the world one more thing to WOW about. The people that he hired were there to help him make his coffee and take out the trash. With him gone, my faith in the creativity of the company is starting to falter.

At the age of 56, Steve Jobs was just starting to deliver to the world what he had in stock. His loss will be greatly felt by us – the teenagers. Although not a complete loyal, 3 out of 5 gadgets I use are Apple products. And a handsome percentage of other teenagers also move around with symbols of a genius’s masterpieces. But maybe I’m being unnecessarily melodramatic. Putting the unveiling of the iPhone 4S behind our backs and starting with a clean slate, Tim Cook should start walking along the lines of his predecessor. There might still be some hope for him if he can work on his grievous public speaking skills (I think he is glossophobic). Otherwise, I can only hope for the best!

The Smart Student

An eccentric philosophy professor gave a 'one question final exam' after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics.

The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist."

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all. His answer consisted of two words: "Which chair?"

The (Digital) Ramayan

LAN, LAN ago, in the land of I/O-dhya, there ruled a king named

DOS-rat. Three queens had he - CONSOLE-ya, CHECKSUM-itra and CIE/CAE

(Kaikeyi). However, he had no line drivers - i.e. no one to perpetuate

his line. In sheer desperation, he performed a great sacrifice after

which his queens gave birth to four sons - RAM, LSIman, BUG-rat and

SED-rughana.

RAM was a microchip off the old block - he had an excellent

memory, he logged in quickly and semi-conducted himself in a manner fit

for

a king. His brothers, however, were only perpheralI ICs; everytime

RAM addressed them, they said, "I-C". Once when RAM was only sixteen

years old, the great sage Vish-WAN-mitra sought his help to fight some

DAEMONs who persistently RAIDed his hermitage. After a brief

collision, RAM routed them so easily that he came to be called DAEMON

ROUTER.

RAM then proceeded to Media, where he married Pricess C+ta.

C+ta's sisters, who were not her blood sisters and hence called

TRAN-sisters, married RAM's ICs. This ceremony came to be known as TTL.

On the way back to I/O-dhya, the entourage met Parasu-ROM (or

P-ROM as he was better known), the scourge of the kshatriyas. Taking up

the P-ROM challenge, RAM aimed an arrow at him; he threatened to take

away

P-ROM's powers of locomotion, thereby converting him to Static RAM.

P-ROM humbly withdrew and the procession reached I/O-dhya.

Twelve years passed and DOS-rat decided to crown

RAM as his successor. However, CIE/CAE, at the

instigation of her BIOSed maid MANtharai(a real

plotter),

insisted that her son Bug-rat be crowned king and that RAM

be banished to the FOR(;;)est for fourteen years. At this cruel and

unexpected demAND, a surge passed thru DOS-rat and he CRASHED,

power-less.

RAM agreed to go to FOR(;;)est and C+ta insisted to go with him.

She said that at the time of her marriage, her father had advised her

to follow the footsteps of her husband like a shadow, hence, she came to be

called SHADOW-RAM.

LSI-man was also resolved on accompanying his

brother as a SLAVE LSI. Unable to bear separation,

DOS-rat died,

setting the precedent that no system could function

in the absence of RAM. The forest was the dwelling of SPARC-nakha, the

sister of RAW-van, King of LAN-ka. Attracted by RAM's stature, she

proposed that he marry her. RAM routed her to LSI-man, who also politely

declined. Perceiving C+ta to be the source code of her distress, she

hastened to kill her.

At this stage LSI-man executed the Memory resident

code and converted SPARC-naak to SPARC-no-naak. He

TRUNCATED her nose.

Weeping, SPARC-no-naak fled to LAN-ka, where RAW-van, moved

by sisters plight, approached his uncle MAR-icha.

Ignoring MAR-icha's compilation warnings not to RISC SPARC-ing

a war with RAM, he insisted on going ahead. Accordingly, MAR-icha

transformed himself into the form of golden sTAG and drew RAM deep into

the

forest.

Finally, tired of chase, RAM shot the deer, who, with his last

breath, cried out desperately for LSI-man in RAM's voice. Fooled by this

Virtual RAM cry, C+ta urged LSI-man to his brothers aid. Catching the

opportunity, RAW-van delinked C+ta from her library and changed her root

directory to LAN-ka by BROADCASTING her over sky.



PART-II



RAM and LSI-man started FINDing for the missing

i-node, c+ta all over the forest. They made

friendship with the forest admin SU-greev and his

powerful co-processor ha-NEUMAN.

ha-NEUMAN was a legendary figure. He had a swollen

cheek ARCHITECTURE. He was a child

prodigy and came up with newer methedologies and

techniques which inspired many others.In particular his RAM mantra

technique became extremely popular for generations.

SU-greev agreed to help RAM but first wanted help

from RAM to delete his own root node VAALI.(

valli?)

SU-greev's intention was obvious. He wanted to be the

only admin around & wanted to grab all the consulting jobs in the

forest.

RAM fought with VALLI and surprised him using some un-documented

features.VALLI cried foul and started complaining to the justice

department saying that it was not a fair fight.RAM then convinced everyone

using his trademark MICRO SOFT WORDs coupled with a few FREE vedic

goodies.Though some of the onlookers such as ORACLE (seer)and pancha bhutas

such as SUN, disagreed with RAM's micro soft touch,they all shut their

mouths fearing RAM's reach among the user community.

SU-greev was happy with the outcome and ordered his programmers to

use powerful 'search' techniques to find the missing c+ta. His programmers

searched all around the INTER-NETworked forests. Some of them shouted

'YAA-HOO' but ended up with 'not found' messages. Several other search

techniques proved useless.

ha-NEUMAN using a radically different paradigm devised a RISKy

technology and used it to cross the seas at astonishing clock speeds.

On

the way he bumped with a few satellite signals but was able to avoid

deflections due to his own high strength. As soon as ha-NEUMAN reached

LAN-ka, he had to collide with its firewall called LAN-ki. The

firewall made disperate attempts to stop ha-NEUMAN entering into its

internal web, but the great ha-NEUMAN detected a loop hole in

LAN-ki's firewall. Using micro code, he broke the security and entered

LAN-ka.

After doing some local search, ha-NEUMAN found C+ta weeping under

the weight of a TREE structure. ha-NEUMAN used a unique key-id (ring)

to identify himself to C+ta. After decrypting the key, C+ta believed

in

him and asked him to send a STATUS_OK message to RAM through RING

topology.

Meanwhile all the raakshasa BUGS around C+ta tied ha-NEUMAN and

tried to terminate him using pyro-techniques. But ha-NEUMAN managed

to spread chaos among the raakshasas by SPAMMING the fire using some

side

effects.

Several raakshasa programmers were later called to restore the

operational stability in LAN-ka. ha-NEUMAN happily escaped LAN-ka again

and conveyed all the STATUS messages to RAM and SU-greev.

RAM felt happy with ha-NEUMAN's methedology of

execution and embarked on a project code named

EXPLORER to delete the netESCAPING RAW-wan. He even

created a bridge and GATEWAY to acess LAN-ka network

In the mean time, signs were apparent in LAN-ka about the

imminent danger from RAM's project EXPLORER, but RAW-wan refused to

budge.

Sensing disaster, his own sub-program called

vibhee-SHUN, executed a 'GO TO' statement and

branched out to RAM's camp. RAW-wan still insisted on taking the

all powerful RAM head-on. He decided to use the boons given to him by SUN,

sHIVa etc.and prepared for the battle on a remote island on LAN-ka

called JAVA.

He thought that his presence in JAVA will give him victory over

RAM.

RAM and his entourage made small and buggy progress in the

begining but the world community on the whole started watching them with

awe. In the battle on JAVA island, it appeared initially that RAM had no

chance.

In fact one of the RAW-wan's SUN indrajIT(son)

almost

killed RAM & LSI-man with a powerful brahma-astra called

JAVA-BEAN. It appeared for a while that the world has seen the end of

RAM's MICRO SOFT touch. But ha-NEUMAN resorted to some

ACTIVE-Xgradients

from HILL GATES and concocted a potion using some herbs.

His

powerful HERBAL-COMPUTER aided him in making this potion which

restarted RAM and LSI-man.

Appearing, reluctant RAM used the source code

secrets of RAW-wan given by vibhee-SHUN and once

and for all wiped out RAW-wan's presense on the

earth. Before that he even SCHEDULED RAW-wan to come

next day when all his resources were locked up bu RAM's virus



weapons He proved again that even the so

called

invincible RAW-wan cannot be netESCAPED from his power.

After the battle, RAM spreaded his MICRO SOFT WORKS and other user

friendly programs to all users across the world and every one

lived

happily thereafter.

END OF DIGITAL RAMAYANA

No fooling around with Maths!!!

Little Zachary was doing very badly in math. His parents had tried
everything: tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers.
In
short, everything they could think of to help his math.


Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and
enrolled
him in the local Catholic school.


After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious
look on his face. He didn't even kiss his mother hello. Instead, he
went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers
were
spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work.

His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner. To her shock,
the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word,
and
in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before. This
went
on for some time, day after day, while the mother tried to und!
erstand
what made all the difference.

Finally, little Zachary brought home his report card. He quietly
laid it on the table, went up to his room and hit the books. With
great trepidation, his Mom looked at it and to her great surprise,
little Zachary got an "A" in math. She could no longer hold her
curiosity. She went to his room and said, "Son, what was it? Was it
the
nuns?"


Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no.

"Well, then," she replied, "Was it the books, the discipline,
the structure, the uniforms? WHAT WAS IT??"

Little Zachary looked at her and said, "Well, on the first day of
school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they
weren't
fooling around."