IIIT

by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Life, Linux

Guys and Gals – We are famous now :)

One of my previous posts threw some light on Bureaucratic System at IIIT. A few hours ago, Zenwalker posted an interesting story on his blog regarding Creation of a mailing list for the purpose of a magazine. These were few things about IQ level 🙂 Now, lets study the ego levels of people at our place. People who are in no way related to IIIT are writing blogs about IIIT. Isn’t that great?? People know us now!! A guy who happens to be a FOSS supporter, was trying to convince administration to organize a FOSS fest at IIIT and this is what he got! (I couldn’t find a way to link to the particular post from the blog, so quoting it here. You can find the original post (its the first one untill author updates his blog) here.)

We approach technical advisor X and assistant professor Y for a F/OSS unconference at a premier International Institute, and they never respond for weeks. Apparently, we knew the Head of the Institute, who whole-heartedly agrees, having been a user group member during his college years, and asks X and Y to take things further.

Now, X and Y are upset, because we approached the Head of the Institute, and permission was granted. Then X and Y show off their ego, presence, and reciprocate by not communicating at all our requests. Weeks go by, and we still don’t get any prompt response. And we decide to finally call it off with them because it was not helping us progress any further.

End result is that the students/faculty of the Institute are at a big loss for not having the event at their venue for no fault of theirs!

While, I have seen such extreme *ego* cases in India in most of my attempts to organize Free Software unconferences, I have never shared it with others. Maybe I should write a book — The Adventures of Shakthimaan: The “Lost” Chronicles 🙂

People have to agree with me that our professors (apart from a few) never reply to mails irrespective of the importance of the mail. I am glad to know that number of people who ask “What is IIIT?” is decreasing 🙂

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Food, Fun, Internet, Life, orkut

Routine Work!

Every night around 3AM before sleeping I think “Current routine/work/lifestyle is taking me nowhere .. its just helping me buy some time before I die .. fuck !! I need to work harder ..” and then I go to bed .. sleep for at least 10-16 hours .. and there I am next morning (ah .. sorry .. afternoon .. around 2PM) .. Spend almost an hour and a half checking mails/twitter/facebook/orkut/my-websites/blogs/reader/money-earned/money-lost(fucking-exchange-rates)/alexa/and-what-the-fuck-not … shit .. its already 3:30PM .. no mess around can serve food at that ungodly hour .. canteen anyone?? and a few rooms throw 404/301/302 (people not found or moved temporarily or permanently and that means room locked .. go learn http status codes) .. and few others (which means the rest) had food already … fuck!! chances are less than 30% that I’ll have enough motivation to go to canteen and have food.. if I succeeded that means another hour wasted just for lunch .. our canteen is such a waste of India’s top talent’s time (well .. i have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from IIIT which is frequently ranked in top 10 colleges of India by some god-forsaken-magazines .. and by all means you can’t convince a middle class family in India that there exists something which is better than computer science as a career.. so me belongs to India’s top talent :P). anyways can’t miss going to coffee shop immediately after lunch at any cost unless there a threat to my life or coffee shop is closed! back from coffee shop .. now what? well here goes the checklist of a typical computer science student … mails/twitter/facebook/… OMG!! did you notice that its already 5:00PM … time for coffee shop!! ping everyone around to notice that none is interested and people replying back with ‘why the fuck you have to go to coffee shop so often???’… but you still manage to convince a few .. and yay!! coffee shop 😀 after that time passes really quickly till dinner … dinner will be at 4 Seasons/Canteen/Yuktahaar/Dominos with decreasing order of probability… irrespective the dinner place, coffee shop will be visited right after dinner .. and i am so used to this routine (tea after dinner) that while at home once i asked for tea and my mom gave me a ‘what the hell?’ expression 🙁 ..  there will be a backlog of updates … checklist .. 😛 .. another hour well wasted.. and then I plan a few things that I should do next … and its around 11PM … so we should visit coffee shop yet another time before it closes … typical procedure … but I somehow manage the last visit … after that a few hours of browsing and then I go the first character of this post …

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Internet, Life, Research

IIIT : A Typical Indian Bureaucratic System and A survey

Disclaimer : This post is a pure work of fiction (? WTF??). Any resemblance to anyone/anything dead/living is not intended and if you still think that its not fiction, then either you have badly screwed up in life or you are gay (this single word will help me get rid of at least 98% people who thinks this post is not fiction :P). And after reading this post if you think English language is gone forever, you are absolutely right, my friend 🙂

A survey has proved that Avg IQ level of people in IIIT Administration is less than the Avg IQ level of blonds in US (blonds like this one, facebook video). Now your expression may be like this “WTF are you talking about?? where are the survey results?? .. where are the votes??” wait wait… do you really care? this is internet you moron!! you see hundreds of surveys daily showing _some_nice_ass_word_here_ and what not.. do you really go looking for people who conducted those surveys .. no .. right!! so believe whatever has been said and if you don’t believe you are gay .. hahaha .. so you finally believe the above survey 🙂

Ok. As you all know that I am trying to get admission to MS by Research programme at IIIT. It took just two and a half months for them to get things (all the paper work) done. So I finally collected the admission letter and the lady their asked me, “Collect your original documents from acad office and submit them”. Wait a minute… Is this MS admissions office not related to IIIT? Anyway I dont really argue with people these days. I try to keep quite 🙂 I went to acad office.. as I entered the office, Appaji looked at me as if I am the guy who is source of all this troubles … So here is the procedure that I need to follow ..

I need to collect original certificates and other crap from acads office… get them xeroxed (they already have xerox copies of all these documents .. but they want fresh ones .. how cool ?? 😀 )… and in the end everything goes back to acad office… this is more or less like reinstalling an application is working out of the box .. but then you know the IQ survey ..

The very thought of going to library building or NBH for xerox made me think that getting admission is not really important as long as you are doing research .. but then I hit this idea of getting docs xeroxed from xerox room in main building .. yeah IIIT has a xerox room near old PG labs… but they dont allow students to use those machines even if you pay for it .. i lied a few things to the guy there and he finally agreed..

Gandhiji ne kaha : “Agar ek jhooth se kisi ka bhala hota ho to wo jhooth bol dena chahiye 🙂 .. ” .. how cool .. thank you bapu 😀

The very thought of saving the energy to walk from main building to NBH and back thrilled me to the limits…

I again went to the office and produced the docs and copies before the jury … and now they need to BTech degree as well … you see .. its like typical govt office … you gather n-1 documents for work X and present them .. and then they’ll ask you for the nth document which supercedes all the n-1 documents and render them useless.

And to my surprise they need 5 photographs … arrey yaro .. itni to sala matrimonial wala bhi nahin mangta .. jahan puri zindagi ka sawal hota hai ..

PS : If you feel hurt after reading this post, comment mein khoob galiya likho .. and I will delete it without notifying you .. 🙂

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Internet, Life, Speakers

Going Home

Well, its that time of year again, when I have to go home. BTW I’ll be at home after skipping four Diwalis in a row. Its not that I don’t love to go home or I don’t love people back there but most of it leads to embarrassing situations in one or the other way. You can’t be a free bird as you are while in IIIT. The worst thing is you can’t use the fu**ing F word and any of its variations. Here are a few common problems I face at home

  • THE BIGGEST PROBLEM : I can’t remember faces 🙁 Whenever I visit some relatives, I can’t recall their names. This happens in some extraordinary manner. I went to my uncle’s (Tau Ji) house and the moment I saw his son, I forgot his name. Total WTF!!! How can you forgot the name of a person who is almost like your real brother. Last time I was at home, it happened at three different locations and drove me crazy.
  • Music : I can’t listen to Ear-Blowing (basically at high volume) music there because of the inherent agreement to social terms and conditions.
  • No Internet : My home is within the boundaries of a national park. At first it sounds super awesome because you get to live really close to nature but then you don’t get high tech facilities there. Weak mobile signals and no internet is such a turn off. Still its not as big a problem as the first one 🙂
  • Embarrassing Questions/Comments : Every single time you go home, there will be neighbours who don’t have any sense of what you are upto and will ask the same questions or deliver their expert comments. ‘Padhai kaisi chal rahi hai?’/’Kitna kamjor ho gaya hai?’ WTF!! If it was so, I should have disappeared in four years.
  • Off Topic Discussions : In four years, I (or any engg grad) have lost total sense of what typically goes or discussed in a family. Now, all we remember/know is the word “BC”, ‘THE F WORD’ and tech-discussions. The discussions/talks which are treated off-topic here are considered relevant back there. And the worst part is that I don’t have a report spam option 🙁

Leaving apart the problems, I hope I’ll have a great time at home this Diwali.

PS : Last point is a bit exaggerated 😛

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Life

Do Not Disturb

Well, its been months since I posted anything on this blog because somehow I am very busy these days. There are a few things I wanted to clarify.

  • I am _NOT_ a sysadmin. If you have a problem with systems, its your fucking problem and I don’t fucking care about it. Please contact the concerned person.
  • I am _NOT_ your tech support. IM is still fine but please DO NOT CALL for support. I have better things to do in life. Please solve it yourself or  just fucking Google it

I am trying to focus on my work and will appreciate your co-operation.

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life, Placements, Success

Biggest WTF Till Date

Though I am not blogging a lot these days, it doesn’t mean that I am dead. The reason is simple – I am using twitter these days, so in case you are curious to know what I am upto, follow me on twitter. Now lets get back to the agenda of this post.

I spent last four years at IIIT waiting for this day (really ? :P). Yes. I came to this institute with dreams of becoming an engineer, receiving a degree, getting into an MNC and earning some cash but you never know what is going to happen next. Priorities change. You don’t study at all, you don’t care what grades you get and when Appaji threatens you that he’ll give you an ‘F’ grades in projects (in which you have ‘I’ grades), you feel like Appaji is an angel and he is doing you a favour because you don’t need to walk upto prof’s office and beg for a ‘W’ grade. All you care about is the page rank of your website and if it increases even by one point you’ll have more dollars pouring in. You care about your freedom to work. You don’t study in regular courses and still you want to do research. Getting a degree in convocation doesn’t make sense to you, instead you don’t register for the convocation and enjoy pizza with the money you saved by not registering for the convocation and quitely collect your degree from academic office later. Its not about money, its about the fun you derive in doing things the way you want. Its the fun of having total control on your life. You attempt 175 credits in BTech (without honours) when you need just 160 of them to complete B.Tech. and you fail in 14 of them 😀 You get placed in two MNCs and don’t join. And then the day comes when your rigorous hard work (what ?? WTF is that?? you forgot all those night outs.. they constitute hard work :P) for four years and thousands of dollars of expenditure is finally rewarded with a paper worth cents (literal worth). You feel like WTF(expression of celebration)!!! A feeling of joy just blows your mind and you feel like celebrating. You call your parents, you tweet about it, you brag about in on facebook, orkut and what not !!!!

In short, I am an engineer now 😀

Thanks IIIT for everything.

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

The PR Disaster

Long time no see! Well I have been through worst phases of my four years at IIIT. Details later. I tweeted about convocation dress code yesterday. Nishant (hobbit) pinged me regarding the same. And the conversation after that turned out really funny.

Nishant: dude
when is convo?
(I misread the above as ‘what is convo?’. Was surprised why Nishant wouldn’t know about convo)
me: convocation i suppose …
Nishant: yes
me: does it hv another meaning ..
oh .. (I re-read his question and realized the mistake.)
Nishant: what’s the deal with graduation day dresses?
me: dhoti kurta =))
or payjam kurta 😀
Nishant: are you f***ing serious?
me: yeah F***ING serious 😛
wait a minute .. (forwarding the mail to nishant)
Nishant: my God it’s going to be a f***ing pr disaster
dude
me: check ur gmail for serious fun 😀
how is that going to affect page rank ? (I thought he was talking about page rank of iiit website)
Nishant: damn you
pr = public relations
f***ing geek
me: gawd!!
sorry 😛

PS1 : A lot of events/things has to be documented on this blog. But no time 🙁

PS2 : Redesigned my Fedora Blog. Check out.

PS3 : Started using twitter. Follow me.

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

Regular Powercuts

I am totally frustrated by the regular powercuts (3-4 hours a day) and no power-backup in hostels. During the recent power cut I wrote this (inspired by a scene from “One Two Three”).

ChachaS : TinkaS, jab bijliS chali jati hai to kahan jati hai?
TinkaS : InvertorS mein jati hai ChachaS.
ChachaS : InvertorS on karoS!
PintoS : HostelS mein invertorS nahin hain na ChachaS.
VigluS : PintoS, Chacha har jagah S kyun lagate hain?
PintoS : Chacha ka a$$ hai, kahin bhi lagayein.

ChachaS -> Me, TinkaS -> Sambhav, PintoS -> Atul, VigluS -> Deepak.

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life, Photography, Travel

Mushroom or Santro Rock

In last four years, I heard a lot about Mushroom Rock (popular by the name Santro Rock among our super seniors) but never got a chance to visit the same. Today we (Me, Sachin, Alok, Pankaj, Kapil B, Atul, Abhinav Paro) decided to visit Mushroom Rock. It is located near Games Village for World Military Games building which is behind OBH. It was almost 6PM. The dim light in the atmosphere added to the beauty of the place. The ambience was awesome.

Mushroom or Santro Rock

Mushroom or Santro Rock

Mushroom or Santro Rock

Mushroom or Santro Rock

We had difficulties in climbing up but we finally managed it. The wind was awesome. We spent almost two hours there recollecting the happenings in past four years. Then we sang songs from 60s to present day 😀 It was an awesome feeling.

We at Mushroom Rock

We at Mushroom Rock

Me

Me

Nobody wanted to return but the hunger forced us to return. Don’t forget to take some eatables in case you plan to go there 🙂

PS : Lots of BC lately. Everything coming to an end 🙁

 
by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Google, Hacking, Life, Linux

Best April Fools’ Day Ever

08:50AM April 1st, 2009

Alarm!!! Ring Ring!!! I had a class at 8:30AM. But thinking that I’ll sleep for few more hours, opted to miss the class.

10:26AM April 1st, 2009

I was in deep sleep (went to bed at 5AM) when my mobile started ringing. I hate it when somebody calls me when I am sleeping. To my surprise it was a call from a faculty member. I took the call and received a congratulatory message. When I asked about the reason, he replied, “You sold videocache for $20000.” I got a thousand volt shock. Immediately all those bollywood flicks (Khosla Ka Ghosla etc.) came to my mind in which X sold property of Y to Z without Y even knowing about it.  I totally lost my mind and couldn’t think of anything. He said a few lines after that and I just couldn’t hear him. I diverted the topic, said two-three sentences and hung up.

Woke up, had some water and switched on my monitor. Saw a message from Ankush Kalkote on Kopete saying, “Congrats yaar. ab to party deni hi padegi.”. In another tab Rishab Mukherjee saying congrats. I started believing it. I tried asking about the source of information but they wanted the god damn party desperately and didn’t really care what I was typing. I immediately openned cachevideos.com to check if somebody had hacked that. It was fine and there were no signs of any intrusions. In the meantime, Rishabh asked me to have a look at Rishi’s status message. It read, “Dollar Chacha (they call me so) has become a MILLIONAIRE. Sold videocache for $20000.” I kept browsing through the list and saw a lot of people changing their status message to the same. A few moments later I realized that its April 1 and everyone is trying to fool everyone else. Frustrated by the whole event, banged my head on the wall and went to sleep.

12:25PM April 1st, 2009

Mahaveer knocked my door asking for lunch. He didn’t know the truth. And fired all W questions (what, why, when, to whom) as soon as I openned the door. I switched on monitor and saw huge queue in Kopete. Everyone going crazy about videocache. People wondering about how can you sell a free software. WTF!!!! I immediately observed a huge potential in this venture. And put up my status as “@all it $21k and not $20k.” In the next five minutes almost 15-20 more people flooded me with queries about the sale.

Few sent congratulatory  mails and few even came up to my room to congratulate. Sudden change in opinion of few people (who didn’t know the truth) around. e.g. “Studies are a total waste of time”, “I should have developed some god damn thing”, “Four years well wasted :(“, “Getting into a job is foolishness” etc…

Taking advantage of the situation, somebody sent a SMTP mail to UG4 which read,

Hello,

As most of you know, Google has bought VideoCache built by me in 20K $. I am really enthralled on this feat. Since, I wish to share my happiness with all of you, I have decided to give you a fantabulous party tonight in the ground just behind the Motorola. Alok n me are busy making arrangements for that. If someone wishes to help us in making the party more than a memorable one, just mail @ mksharma@students.iiit.ac.in
If you wish to visit the VideoCache website, click http://cachevideos.com

As you must have figured it out by now, I didn’t plan any of this. It was planned by few people as a side-effect of attending Indic class. If anyone was hurt, he/she should go and kick Sachin Goyal, Kapil Bajaj, Rishi Gupta, Ankush Kalkote, Ajay Somani.

All in all it was big fun and best april fools’ day I ever had.