My New Year Resolutions

2011 is about to end and the much hyped 2012 is knocking at my doorstep. It's time to flow with the flow. But, to ensure that next year is as fruitful and prosperous as it can be, the universe demands a little preparation. Ladies and gentleman, with great pleasure I present to you - My New Year Resolutions

All resolutions invariably mean leaving privileges and comforts. What privilege and comfort should I forgo this time? It doesn't make sense to promise something I cannot fulfill nor does it make sense to undertake something with no positive returns.

So, my carefully chosen new year resolutions for 2012:

#1. I promise to be more productive. May be I'll try my hand in art history, humanities & the social sciences, cooking, etc.
#2. A little less hypocriticism. 

#3. Will try to get into some kind of a relationship.

#4. And decrease my waist to a less humiliating size. 

Only time will tell whether I shall be able to accomplish these or not. Number-3 definitely looks insurmountable and so does number-4. Lets see. I'll let you know on this same occasion next year.

What's your new year resolution?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Cooking - the ChemE way

As I have told you before, I was learning to cook from my mother these days. Today, I went a little further ahead in my education and cooked dinner independently, i.e., without any help from my guru. It was a simple affair – rice and some cabbage; the end effect was witnessed by my sister, mother and me. From the perspective of a first time cook, I would say it exceeded expectation (EE).

The utensils remain to be scrubbed but as I had to tell you folks this little exuberant news, I excused myself of the duty and let mother handle it (after all, I had apprenticed to become a cook and not a dish-washer :).

As is the case with any initial venture, I made a few mistakes and I learned quite a lot about the nitty-gritty of cooking. The engineer in me could not help but make a few observations that popped up in my head during the enterprise.

Cooking is an art. However, I think it will bloom fantastically if the rigours of engineering laws are applied to it. For instance, a knowledge of chemistry behind the addition of various ingredients should be drawn up. It is really frustrating when you have to rely on someone else’s recipe which are, most of the time, a result of the primitive approach of trial and error method. How can you be sure an X amount of this substance and Y amount of that substance will give the most optimum result? I apologize, Sir, I cannot take your word for this when I know that your conclusion is the outcome of a very poor and inefficient scientific endeavour, namely, the trial and error method.

Also, if I want to substitute one ingredient with the other when the former is unavailable, how will I calculate the deviation of my new dish from the original? What about substitution brought about by necessities like allergies(such as peanut allergy), diseases like diabetes, etc.?

The molecular level of chemistry might be too mind-boggling for non-chemists and at the reaction level, it might be too humungous. If that is the case, some simpler empirical relations can be developed to guide the composition of everyday dishes.

Notwithstanding, we must refrain from creating equations that are computationally extensive to solve, as resources of the homemaker are somewhat limited. A more prudent solution would be to develop pictorial graphs on the lines of Mollier diagram and Moody’s chart.

I believe that it is only a matter of time before somebody achieves the points I have elucidated above. Only then will the homemaker be worthy of the name –‘the domestic engineer’.

Quality Time not the quantity of it

Choti mu, badi baat...................

When I was in my tenth standard, my science teacher once told me this, "Spend time with your parents. It is the quality time that matters not the quantity". She was scolding us for some reason and somehow, I don't remember why, she said that. Probably, life had thought her that. Her good-willed advice fell on my deaf ears. I said to myself, "I shall have plenty of time later on. Let me handle my boards first."

A year later, my father passed away after a sudden stroke. Even though my most beautiful moments with dad was in the period after my tenth(we had a lot of common passions and habits :-) ), had I paid a little heed to my science teacher's advice I would have tried much harder to make those moments count.

Now that I am still studying...what can I tell you...I did handle my tenth boards(boy! that result day was the happiest moment in my life)....then I handled my JEE(somehow! ;) )...and now I am handling my Engineering studies.

Trying not to make the same mistake twice. However, I cannot say that I have performed as best as I could. I mean I am trying, and trying a lot harder. These days, my favourite past times - learning cooking with my mom....accompanying her in bazaar runs...etc, etc. ..and on the way, discussing all the ways how this world is going to the doom. Also, spending time with my younger sister, teaching her a little this and a little that about a little this here and a little that there.

I learnt my lesson the hard way - possibly, the same way my teacher had.So, I'll give you the same advice that was for me - "start spending 'quality' time with your parents". Learn cooking, as I did. The effort your mother puts into making your dinner will surprise you. Or try any of her hobbies, be it gardening, knitting, painting....
Discuss with dad his works, his job, etc....and if he has a technical mind, tell him about your engineering studies(or lack of it), about Techniche..... Share some small works with him...fixing the bulbs, washing the car, etc... If you have a small brother/sister, talk about their school....(for me, it was like re-living those school days again...) and yes! share some anecdotes from Alcheringa...(please, don't encourage them to join IIT yet....)

Do anything, except wasting times looking at your laptop....and reading my blog......!!!!

Discriminated

An absurd view of the world as I see it. Nothing in this writing is meant to be true neither is any meaning/view implied. It is, at best, my attempt to be humorous and should be read only in that context.

For eons men have dominated our society, they have exerted domination over the downtrodden female class. Although existence of exceptions to this rule are rumored, but have not been validated(i.e, to the best of my knowledge). For instance, I have been told that there is a certain society in our country where women/mothers are the heads of the family. In this society, when people marry it's not the bride who is bidden farewell from home but it's the bridegroom who is forced to move to his in-laws' house.(Note: If this were to happen to me, I would only marry Bill Gates' daughter. An afterthought: I think I might be able to make it work even with the Tata's or the Ambani's !).

Before I go any further, I would like to state here, for the record, that I am a total egalitarian. I believe in the equality of all people. So, when I see discrimination, be it anywhere, my blood boils within me. Lets take the case of queues in public places. You must have noticed there are always two of them - one for the ladies and another for the gents. So far, so good. But imagine this, you are in a queue and there are no ladies. You wait for about an hour for your turn and still there are no ladies, which is bad because you have nothing to stare at. And as you just get to the front, a girl walks in. Naturally,it's her turn. You'll say to yourself, "I have waited for an hour, I suppose I can wait another minute. In the meantime, I can look at her pretty pretty face". She finishes her business and as you are about to be serviced, the window is shut closed on your face with a sign-board "Lunch time". And the 'another minute' becomes another hour. Please tell me, who's the victim of discrimination here?

Have you ever taken a city bus in Guwahati? Have you seen the price of JEE forms this year? Did you know about the women's reservation bill in parliament and other state legislatures? Have you seen faces of your friend when they were dumped by their girlfriends? Have you seen the laboratory marks of your female friends?....etc, etc.

I could keep rambling on and on, but I'll save it for other (useful)issues. I'll say this though, 'the biggest discriminator of all is nature itself. ' Do you know what happens when you eat more food then required? Your body turns it into fat and stores it for future use. In case of men, they are all stored around your tummy, making you fat and disgusting. Whereas, in women they get stored in all the right places(if you know what I mean), making them more beautiful and Angelina Jolie like. F***ing unfair, man! , f***ing unfair!

Industrial Conclave, Me & My friends.......

Techniche'11 saw the first successful conduction of Industrial Conclave. I think it's time something was put in black and white(since no one else was doing it....) to commemorate the awesome team that we were(& are), a testimony to the infinite efforts we put in it.....conceptualizing and building it from scratch, the numerous setbacks encountered, the jubilance and the uncountable sacrifices that had to be made. During the process, I made some excellent friends.....friends to stick by.....

Cheers to the team.....

Organisers
1. Shashank Shekhar
2. Vasu Raj
3. Anshul
4. Minal
5. Rishika
6. Sarayu
7. Devarshi
8. Harshit
9. Pratyuksh
10. & me

Also, convener Ankit Khemka & Events head Ashwin Chandra.....whose audacity led to the event in the first place....

The new team for the Industrial Conclave '12 is soon going to be formed. Some of us will leave the team and will move onto other things....but whatever/wherever it shall be...our hearts shall forever bleed for TIC...

Good Wishes to the new team & may you achieve much more than we did....

To the best team in Techniche '11..................

Cool Things I want to do, which I will probably never do

Check out, how many of these do you want to do...
1. Sneak into a girls' hostel after mid-night
2. Drive a SUV on a cross country ride
3. Steer a boat/ferry on the Brahmaputra
4. Get into an all out street brawl
5. Jump from an airplane(with a parachute, of course)
6. Swim with dolphins(cant do that cos I never learnt to swim)
7. Visit an active volcano
8. Get really drunk
9. Get a tattoo
10.Bungee jumping
11.Climb the Everest
12.Taking part in running of the bulls
13.Go on an expedition to Arctic
14.Go on an expedition to Antarctic
15.Crash a big and important wedding
16.Get a Samurai sword
17.Learn to use that Samurai sword
18.Learn Surfing
19.Learn Skateboarding
20.Get a horse
21.An M.S, just 4 d legendary co-ed bathrooms
22.Get off the grid for 2 weeks
23.Be as obnoxious as Dr. Sheldon Cooper(& get away with it)
24.Get into the army
25.Get some sniper training
.....more to come....just started compiling

Starting of my Project named 'Doing a Project'

Techniche ended and a feeling of idleness began to set in. So, I along with my 2 other friends, Ashwik Battu and Pritam Sharma approached Dr. Amit Kumar(assist. prof CL) to ask him if he could guide us in any project. Currently in 3rd semester and having negligible amount of Chemical Engineering knowledge within us, he was a little reluctant. Questioning us .... why we wanted to do a project and what we wanted in the project, etc, etc ?....Inside my head I had the perfect answer..."I wanted a project because I had no other job after techniche '11. Culturally, I am a big ZERO and neither am I keen on sports...so total villa...Give us anything to do as long as I could add it to my CV"....Good sense prevailed and my friends said some crap about learning more about ChemE and things like that...while I kept mum(smart me !).
Finally, he agreed to let us work on some theoritical thermodynamics....calculating dew,bubble points etc using different models in liquid-vapour equilibrium(or something similar). He gave us a few things to read, on completion of which some real life examples are to follow...Excited but also a little scared...cause some 3rd sem students also started working on it last year but left it halfway .... apparently it was not easy....

The Question and the Equation

I look forward to being in the chemistry class every afternoon. The reason is her. She sits right in front of me. She looks at me, and then it happens. Her eyes meets mine and I stare into her eyes trying to fathom what she is thinking. Is she thinking about me or is she thinking of chemistry. The chemistry inside the brain that makes you aware how green the trees are, blue the sky is and how beautiful the pattering of the rain sounds.

She stirs a little in her seat and my concentration wavers. Snapped out of the sky, trees and the rain only to find myself mesmerized by her beauty. Her fair complexion, feline eyes, and her angel like face. I cannot help but be smitten by her hair, her smile and her hands. Everything perfect and everything beautiful. Her dress augments her beauty. The folds in her clothes and the intricate patterns of colour and shade-light that it drew. And my mind goes like Uff teri ada.

I realize she had looked at me for a purpose. She wants to ask me something. A little hesitant. As if trying to figure out the best way to put the question. Reminds me how difficult it is for me to approach a girl to ask that one question. But why is she dithering. Is it something...that thing ?

She looks down into her notebook. Oh My God ! Did I stare at her for too long ? No. She is looking up now. Ready to ask. She asks "Sir, I don't get it. How did you get one point one naught four three in that equation ?"
A question to remind me of my aukat(status).  Anyway, I answer "Use formula number four, the one I showed you yesterday. And don't call me 'Sir'. In fact, nobody should call me 'Sir'. " She smiles then nods her head and dives into her notebook again.

Actually, I am taking Chemistry classes trying to prepare students for IIT JEE. As a strong advocate of 'Promote Girl Education' campaign(so that they come to IIT...) I have decided not to get distracted and jeopardize my students' chances of coming to IIT. Considering the strength of female IIT population I know I had done the right thing. More girls, less frustapa less suicide. I have made a big sacrifice but in the words of Spock and Dr. Sheldon Cooper  "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" or "the one".

Curse you smelly pooper and spock.

U Turn

Some wise man had said "Destiny has a plan of it's own".

For the last few days, there's this particular thought(or realisation) that has been bothering me. I have laughed thinking about it, cried thinking about it and slept thinking about it. It's an all consuming thought that is questioning my very aim in life. Funny thing about "aim in life" is that when I was a kid and needed to write an essay on it, I used to choose 'scientist'. So funny ! Now I am as far from being a scientist as Katrina Kaif is from becoming an "actress". Back then I could not make myself think of taking any other profession other than theoretical physicist. That was totally unacceptable. Guess, I am not the same boy that I used to be.

Another anecdote May 2008, my NTSE interview,
first question : "What's your favourite subject ?"
I, with considerable pride in my system, answered "Physics and Mathematics, Sir".
Interviewer: "That's quite an interesting combination".

Today I am struggling to avoid an F grade in maths and physics(actually the word 'struggling' in this context is an exaggeration, I am not struggling but there's a small realisation inside my head that says I need to study phy and math to pass ). What the heck ! Even the question "What's your favourite subject" seems meaningless. My greatest confessions ever I DONT LIKE TO STUDY and I AM TOO LAZY TO SIT AND STUDY.  Or somewhere in between these two. It's complicated. Actually, I am complicated.

June 2008:
My elective for +2 course - Statistics. Never wanted biology. Look at the irony of life. As I am presently considering biotechnology for a minor(also under serious consideration is Product Design).

Another anecdote June 2010:
JEE n AIEEE 2010 results were declared. Time to fill choices for admission. During those days, all I wanted was a degree in mechanical engineering. Of course, no respectable IIT in this nation would give me mechanical with my rank. I even contemplated joining NIT Trichy. Better sense prevailed and I joined IIT Guwahati. I remember a senior suggesting me to take Design major(another unacceptable proposition in those days).  My first semester started and I was all in for Branch Change(IIT's have this provision for letting students change department at the end of 2nd semester provided your marks are good enough). Something's changed(i mean something more than my CPI ) and I no longer crave for mechanical. It's not easy to give up a desire you have held for so long. I cry sometimes(thinking of those days)(and not in the literal sense of the word 'cry')

I guess life doesn't always turn out the way you want it to be. But as another wise man had said "Everything happens for our own good".I take solace in the wisdom of these men and go to sleep every night.

See you around

I was thinking today(typical me !) and I realised that many technologies have come many have gone, companies have come and they have gone...but there is one thing that's going to be around for quite a long time. Yes, I am talking about Google Search Engine. I mean, yesterday I saw a person typing the search keyword "facebook" in the google page just to log into facebook.com. (This should totally go into one of those height of laziness smses... ;-) ...) Larry can now place ads with the punch line - Visit our page Google and gain valuable time by saving yourself from typing 'www' or '.com' and get redirected to your desired webpage. Wait, where will it place those ads.  Btw, google spelling mistake detection algo is also awesome(regardless of the fact that if I search for my name 'Changmai' it'll ask me did you mean 'Chiang mai'. Damn it ! I know how to spell my name )

Another thing that's going to be around for a long time is Microsoft Windows OS. Even though there are much better  'free' options available to choose from, people will continue to flock for MS OS. Reason is simple - 'phokat mein milne waali cheejo ko kyun use kare bhikariyo ki tarah'.

orkut beta

Another one is the beta tag of Orkut. Doesn't matter to me much. But seriously dude, Orkut beta ! No wonder Facebook is making Zuckerberg a billionaire.






The fourth thing that's going to be around for a long time are "My Ramblings". Yes, recently I have been a little negligent on my blogging, folks ! rest assured....It's going to go on and on and on and on....

P.S: There are other things also that are going to be around for a long time, but this being a family blog I'll skip them. Afterall, we all know what they are !

linux : ek newbie ki jabani

Linux/gnu is the buzz now among my 2nd semester friends. It is because we have to use linux environment in our programming lab(can't use windows coz it isn't a true multi-user system). My tryst with linux/gnu started when I got my first computer, thanks to chief minister Tarun Gogoi, which came preloaded with Ubuntu OS. I tried it for a few weeks and then gave it up as it didn't have many of the features I wanted plus the absence of broadband-to install the plugins and other apps. But, the latest version of Ubuntu( aka Maverick Meercat) is awesome. I have been using it(and Lucid Lynx) since I came to IIT Guwahati.
         To a newbie linux/gnu can be terrifying "What's with all these commands?" - you may ask. Does it feel like going back instead of progressing? Actually, it isn't archaic. It is quite useful at times and definitely more powerful. Oh ! I almost forgot to tell you, today's linux distros have GUI too(and it's good)...

my ubuntu desktop & terminal

        I am a newbie myself and in this blog I am gonna take you through the basic linux/gnu commands, enough to survive the first CS110 lab. Learn them well, because not only your aptitude for programming but also your basic linux commands will be put to test in the next CS lab. I'll assume that you have no prior experience with linux and if you do, have patience...atleast comment

Most of these commands will work in all distros unless specified.

        In CC, instructor will ask you to work in Fedora, so forget about the SSH icon you saw in Windows desktop(as was initially taught by Prof. Rao).

In Fedora: Go to Applications -> System tools -> Terminal.
In Ubuntu: Go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal.(btw there's a shortcut just press Alt + Ctrl + T, you can also change this shortcut in System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts, isn't it cool?)

        There you will see some text before a $ or % sign. It's called the command prompt , basically it means the computer is ready to accept commands. Before connecting to the computing server using the ssh command let's learn some basic commands first.

        Write pwd after the command prompt and press enter. You'll something like /home/username. pwd stands for print working directory and /home/username is the path of your working directory.

        Now enter this command mkdir new_folder  . Well ! don't worry if you see nothing because by mkdir command you have instructed the computer to make a new directory by the name new_folder( by the way don't write new folder, cos linux hates a space in a name. If you have to use spaces in a file/folder name use them inside inverted commas like mkdir 'new folder'). Now, the new directory will have the path /home/username/new_folder

       To see it enter the command ls , which stands for list.  You'll now see among your other files and folders, a folder called new_folder

        To make this new_folder your working directory enter cd new_folder
cd stands for change directory. Now try pwd and see what you get.

      To come out of this directory use cd .. or cd /home/username
the double dot(..) here stands for the parent directory and a single dot(.) means the working directory(did it ring some bells. Arrey bhai ./a.out, now you know why it's ./)
 So, while you were in new_folder your working directory was new_folder and the parent directory was username.

        The other commands are mv to move or rename a file, cp to copy a file, rm to remove/delete a file, rmdir to delete a directory.

use them this way 
to move a file give the command-  mv file (new destination)
suppose you have a file test.c in your username directory that you need to move to temporary, just type mv test.c temporary . Of course you must be in the parent directory of temporary, otherwise you shall have to type mv test.c /home/username/temporary

to rename a file just enter-   mv (old file name) (new file name)
eg to rename test.c as renamed.c enter mv test.c renamed.c

to copy use cp the same way as mv
eg:  cp renamed.c temporary
it will copy renamed.c to temporary

to delete renamed.c enter-   rm renamed.c

to delete a directory enter  rmdir (directory name)
eg: rmdir temporary will remove the directory named temporary.

okay, other interesting commands you might like to try on your own:
#1 whoami
#2 ip addr
#3 info
#4 man (a command name) eg man cp
#5 find (filename*)
#6 exit

(only for IITG 2nd sem students)And to connect to computing server just type the command ssh username@202.141.80.3 
Alternatively, from your Ubuntu system you can goto Places -> Connect to Server.. change the sevice type to SSH , give the server as 202.141.80.3, port 22, folder /home/cs201/stud/username and then connect

       enjoy linux/gnu and if you think I have forgotten something, made a mistake or simply you want to add something of your own...then please comment below...

Clueless !

It has been a couple of weeks or more since I last blogged. The problem lies not in my lack of time, but in the fact that there's always been a dearth of ideas, a dearth of topics to write my blogs on. Whenever I sit down to write something, I am completely clueless; I start rambling(no pun intended this time) and that's the end of it.

So, let me recall the things that are happening in my life and hopefully, I'll come up with somethng to write about.
Rewinding the last twenty four hours of my life: dreamt, woke up, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast, went to classes, came back, ate dinner and am blogging now. There's nothing to write about my dreams as I don't remember one single detail(heck, I don't even remember whether I dreamt or not), classes were normal and I don't recall anything interesting happening(read: I fell asleep), dinner's always the same and ........that's it..... Hmmph...!! I am still clueless,don't know what to write about

Let me go more back in time.
Rewinding the last 36 hours of my life : saturday was special - the first day of the new year. Had a real good time with my closest friends, met with an old friend after two and a half years and then went to the science museum. There among other notable things I saw my first 3D film. Sunday: nothing that I could remember. Monday: dull as every other monday(classes started again after weekend !). Hmmpph...still clueless

Let me go back a month in time.
Rewinding the last month of my life: Holidays started. Back at home, enjoyed the food and affection of my mother. Otherwise, it was boring like hell. Wrote a few articles(mostly nonsense) for my blogs.

Hmmmppphhh.....clueless again...
The last six months: The only good thing that happened was my admission into IIT Guwahati and I don't remember(or I don' want to remember) anything else..........................hmmph...

What am I doing with my life ? I am totally clueless as to what I am doing now neither do I know what I am going to do in the next 4 years of my life. I realise being clueless about a topic to write is not the issue anymore....I am clueless with my life...

I am really scared; what am I gonna do in the next four years of my life... I don't want to be a machine who only eats, attends classes and sleeps... I want to do something, I want to do something big and I want to achieve something much bigger but what exactly????? ....I am clueless...