Moved

My last notice to evacuate blogspot is due and my conscience has pestered me to finally move on. I am now at http://www.cmi.ac.in/~amitprakash . Please update your feeds/blogrolls accordingly. Hopefully I should be redecorating my new home pretty soon. See you there :)

Ai

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy that you're so strange

And in your darkest hour
Now all secrets fade
And we can watch the world devour in its pain

Excerpts RRI

People like most animals do not like being cornered. If you corner them, they'll get angry. Its a defense mechanism against pain, just like lying is a defense mechanism to avoid pain.

Kid me not

A clever word
A tacit lie
While all this while
I knew it all
And yet I played

In retrospect
I think I know
In happy times
And heated words
It was not me

So you can try
And claw your way
But you are never
One of them
Another playful company

For time is all
That matters most
It heals your heart
And blurs the fun
And forms the mathematical group

Of chapatis and silos

"You're the one who's pampered her too much. Look at her tantrums. What boy would have her like this." Madan listened quietly while Savitri belched her anger out. Perhaps it was her own way to show her affection to the child, for she would never so far as to question her, let alone a slap or two. But every now and then she would be so worried, and then Madan had to face her temper instead.

But Indu hadn't always been the only girl in the family. She had loved her namesake and Bindu had been so jolly. And Madan would proudly call her the favorite daughter. Every week he came back from work, he would get a haandi of rosogullas, from that special store at Munger and Bindu would be the first one to devour till she was full. And Indu would wait patiently till her elder sister was finished. She was far too institutionalized to question such favoritism, not that it bothered her anyways. In a far corner of her mind, she knew that the rosogullas were far too many to get over before she was the next in queue.

But then things took a bad turn. My grandmother had only 3 children survive the 8 she had borne and the high rate of mortality countered the numerous gifts of god. In a village, falling ill is common. Kids pick up a disease, develop immunity and then stay free from it the rest of their lives. And while the civilized man worries too much for hygiene; water from the earth , unprocessed cereal and mother's milk were fortunately enough for the rugged life at the village. Bindu hadn't been so fortunate. And when she took ill all the colors had faded from Madan's face. He had gone from place to place looking for doctors and witches to cure her. He hadn't been to the fields or the office at Munger for weeks now. And Bindu would just lie there in the cot, a former shell of life and giddiness that she had been.

Even now Indu hates to reminisce of those days. And while she would run errands on Savitri's orders and Bindu's whims, she had stayed by her sister massaging her feet and hands. They never knew what had her down and when she lay in the cot lifeless, not much different from a few moments ago, Indu had kept massaging her feet. It was maybe a minute or two later when she shrieked and Savitri had come running to her worst fears.

Madan had remained morbid for weeks to come. Indu had tried to cheer him up so very often. And she had finally succeeded. The crops were good that year and Madan had a promotion to him. But she had ne'er liked the chapatis while Savitri would make an extra lot to keep her plump and healthy. Even Madan wouldn't rescue her from it. He would too have an obese daughter than a sickly and thin child. So Indu would sit with her plate and eat so very slowly, always near the silo. And when her parents weren't looking, she would slide a couple of the thick fat pancakes behind it.

Disclaimer: Web Logging

So I tried google analytics. Its quite awesome considering the detailed information it presents about website hits. And while its awesome to view hits and unique counts and geographical location, there was something amiss. So here I wrote a small php script to log every visitor by his ip address and other relevant data. And while you cant directly add php to blogspot, you can host the php page somewhere else [ for example cmi webserver ] and add an iframe widget redirecting to the php page :)

Now, I am a close knit guy and yes, this blog doesn't get many hits. So I wanted to find out my visitors personally, just so as to reach out to the fanbase and satisfy my own whims :P And all was well till it logs 15-11-08 / 12:52:34 - 122.167.83.46. Now who the hell in Bangalore visits this runt of a webbie >_<. Curiosity killed the cat and hence I am now trying to add a little code to log the username / blogspot / wordpress id of the visitor :P

So I find it only appropriate to warn you that w.r.t. all future visits to this webpage, you forfeit all your rights to browsing privacy.

Cheers :D

Oh Snap!

What makes a picture special
Is however rough the times be
I can always cherish your smile
And it makes me feel all better

What makes a picture special
Is when you are far away
I know that you are waiting for me
And then everywhere feels like home

What makes a picture special
Is when I and you dont get along
I can turn back time and see
That a honest apology wouldn't be so bad

What makes a picture special
Is now when I am rotting
You're still beside me
As you were so long ago

What makes a picture special
Are not the lush green valleys
Or celebrations past
Was not the broken leg
Or the signed cast
Won't be the bittersweet memories
Or friends long gone
But what makes it special
Is you

Kindergarten song

Between phatic conversations
And science talks
Of furry paws
And shuttles passed

Amidst body penis ratios
And drunken brawls
As Altaïr
When Animus recalls

While celebrating the old
And salt less feed
Held cellphones called
And Swiss chocolate greed

For days gone by
A colloquy
Burn baby burn

About: Home

Was down a little yesterday .. Ma had a minor accident as a pillion rider. Says shes fine now :) Feeling much better :D

For Jaya :)

I saw you then
In shades of blue
You looked away and into his eyes
It hurt a little and the voice within died inside

I smoked a puff and watched the sky
Light up like a candelabra
And I was glad but for a moment
For you kept mum as days went by

I blame my life in wretched vain
Was I so sad, so dull
That when you were gone, you mouthed a word
But all was seen and heard was naught
And I was glad again

But now I knew I was a foe
A nascent one
And the epitome of altruistic deeds had pitied me
My foe had pitied me, had lent a hand

So you won't have your happiness
And you won't be as kind no more
And I'll keep the distance large
And I'll be set free again

For your eyes only :)

Show encrypted text

GRE preparations Day 1 Attempt 2

Alleged Alliteration
While most men thrive on the adulation of others, there are a few who take it as a vice. Rather nothing pleases them more than the advent of a critic or an adventitious adversary. Such are the people who flourish in adverse situations and it is indeed the adversity that takes out the best in them. The adage "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" adverts the same. Partially because an aegis to their own advocacy keeps them from being blinded by pride. While the idea is aesthetic, such folks are hardly ever affable and posses affected mannerisms lacking affinity for the normal human.

Those souls are truly unfortunate however, who are affixed to the former kind, constantly afflicted if their actions would be taken as a personal affront. In their own resolve, they hence begin to aggrandize attempts to help the subject with everything they can. More than their own success, they remain agog of their subject's endeavours, while assisting in the same with great alacrity. Such is the alchemy of desire, for in some alcove of their hearts, they allay their own fears of their host alienating them by these meandering usefulness. Such allegiances are however, hardly meaningful for the subject.

The matter slightly alludes to me and my subject. I have however, not been honest as my subject is altruistic. I blame this on my ambivalent feelings. Moreover, a lot of these words wouldn't be accounted for if I were to be accurate. After all, the purpose of these rants is to prepare for the GRE at an amble pace. I hope to ameliorate the next passage in its truthfulness.

Words I couldn't accommodate

Aerie: Nest of a large bird
Agape: Open mouthed, e.x. standing agape at a sight
Affluence: abundance, wealth
Agglomeration: collection, heap
Allegory: fable
Alimentary: supplying nourishment, ex: digestion occurs in alimentary canal
Amenable: readily managed or willing to be led, answerable legally

GRE preparations Day 1 Attempt 1

Luckily, my last endeavour at human bonding has given me a totally new outlook to GRE preparations. I have decided to mince my words all around her, which has luckily helped me a lot more than rap. Hopefully, such story reading format will also help any other aspirants who come along here looking for any help. Most of the penning down will also seem pretty childish but that's the best I can come up with in such state :) Also it has dawned upon me that a of *ahem* unexpected people read through this, I have tried to keep the information as cryptic as possible :P

Abridged Conversation ;)
While admonished by Y not to ask her out, my adjuration for closure kept my decision unchanged. The abject conversation with X led me to numerous aberrant conclusions. I asked her not to abase herself when she was abashed by my open admiration of hers.

Though I am not abdicating my love of her, I have decided that the proposal should stay in abeyance till matters abate. I hope that during this period of abnegation, she wont abhor me anymore while knowing her better will abet me further. Unfortunately it seems that her escape strategy is to abjure our friendship and abominate my attempts to save it all the same. While my taste in women has been marked abominable, it is still an aboriginal act in CMI.

Sadly, my heart aches at our abscission and years me to abscond at the sight of her. I really hope she can absolve my sudden proposal as my acuity in such matters is failing me.

Her diet seems abstemious as if her hunger was an abstract concept. I certainly hope that my abstruse insight to her psyche will remain unchallenged, unless I have been abysmally ignorant. At least, Z accedes with my actions, who has been my only confidante of any use. I plan to accost her today accoutered w/ ADSE and hopefully she shall respond w/o acerbity.

I have been an acidulous child and acknowledge that 2003 was the acme for such behaviour. But A shall acquiesce that I am no longer acrimonious and hence have grown overly optimistic. This is probably what actuates me to keep trying, or as an old adage says " Try and try and you will succeed".

Here are a few words I couldn't fit anywhere.

Abrogate: Abolish
Abut: border upon or adjoin
Acclivity: Sharp up slope of hill
Acclimate: Adjust to climate
Accretion: grown/increase
Accrue: come about by addition, ex: interest is accrued to the principal loan
Acrid: Sharp, Pungent
Acrophobia: Fear of heights
Adjunct: Insignificant add-on, ex: Laptop is an adjunct to the desktop.
Actuarial: Calculating, Pertaining to statistics

Ladder Theories

Being on the other end of a rejection sucks. Whats worse is how it hits you how blunt and carefully tread answers seem far worse than the flat out truth. Its much easier to give up when you know the things with such and such didn't work out was because you were ugly or fat or short or smoker or drinker or stupid (which in my case should be all of the above :P). Atleast, those hit you hard to give up or to work on the key lows if you can help it.

Vague statements such as "I don't think of you that way" or "I like you as a friends" make no sense at all. Thinking back, I realize now how being considerate was also being equally stupid. Honestly, I don't see why you would reject a friend as a more unless there was someone else you liked, or you weren't straight or maybe you just didn't like the concept of going out enough to actually try it but yet not hate it enough to mind others trying it ( all of which would indeed be better answers). What might stop you however would be the fact that in some corner of your heart, you did feel the person standing in front of you lacking in the qualities you admire or flaunting the ones you detest.

Thinking back now in the past, it was indeed that she had been too dumb or too unattractive for my own tastes that I let her down. I wonder now if my answers had been the right one, or did I do more damage than I thought I would. Maybe this new found profoundness is because I am low on nicotine or due to her answer, I know not. But did you feel the same way.

I love Preyas

Heh, best advice as yet :) Remember that anyone who rejects you is not worth your attention. I already feel happy.

Bouldevard of broken dreams

Well, I crossed the line, got turned down and now am a dead man.

Little boxes

The after effects of my first joint :
Dizzyness - or something like it.. basically the world seems to rotate
Lightness - a pulsating feeling in your thighs calves arms the back which gives the sensation of a massage =)
Delayed response time - With most things, the response time is hugely delayed
Euphorism - exactly what it says :)

I couldnt note further as I grew tremendously drowsy :P Ah also there's a burning sensation in the throat which feels like well vomit. It was the best night sleep I had in a long time.

Cigarattes

There's a thin line between friendship and love, the hurdle being the fact that once you cross over you can never come back. T_T

shourai

This is probably the lamest thing I am ever going to write [in my defence I had lost use of my eyes for about 2 weeks now, which led to a lot of brooding time]

How do you chose what you want to do with your life? I have had a pretty successful run at academics and everyone I know has taken a job or is pursuing higher education. But somehow I don't like it, the place its taking me.And then there are things that I enjoy.

Games, the console kinds, not the flash based ones. Playing one has always inspired me to make one, got even a little hands on, but a career in it will take me probably the next 10 years and I surely lack patience.

Modeling, not the fashion kind but using 3d tools. It makes me feel like I can sculpt, well the prettiest women I can imagine, but theres hardly any scope of a career being here.

And animating, little stories like nagaraja or dhruv except maybe, a lot more sensible and meaningful. I've always loved the comic books I read but theres hardly anyone that would publish one today. The way the music, art and storytelling all come together, feels like heaven.

I am torn in doing things that make my life secure, and things that make my life hard but happy. How do you cope with that? And how do you know you won't regret it when it's too late to turn back.

Omelette-Du-Fromage

i am bored of living in hostels. well not like bored but more like i want change. like a properly cooked meal or freshly made bed or hot baked cookies and a non geeky social life

i want booze

Kuroi shiinda

Kuroi is dead. A dog killed her.

Point of Views

Dual monitors are too cool. Its always a good idea to steal a spare from the lab :)

It can obtain bearing

In search of a new land

Let's build a new house

By neatly gathering hay

To thatch the roof

By neatly gathering hay

Neatly gathering hay

To thatch the roof

At the stone walls

Let's celebrate the golden house

That was built

By a hundred carpenters

That was built

Was built

By a hundred carpenters

August draws near

But I have nothing to wear

I want to dress up

Brothers, lend me a sleeve

I want to dress the children and those I love

With the single kimono I own

I will wear vines

That I picked deep within the mountains

The full moon shines

Illuminating the world with its divine light

When my lover comes to visit, I wish the clouds would hide it a little

Ideas to work on

A filesystem on tags :) get rid of the old directory structure.. the entire fs should be one huge db and searched using tags. so no more will anything have to be manually organized or searched XD

Imagine Cup- A s/w that gives a model of a city which follows the rules of sustainable development

Headtracking Cetera- awesome concept to combine headtracking with cetera to give true virtual 3d experience

Amarok3d - a 3d media library for amarok.. makes looking at media much cooler

Compiz 90s plugin- a plugin that allows rotating along a fixed axis.. easy arrangement of windows :)

will explain the ideas later

Things you should ne'er do under the effect of alcohol

Try to breathe like a dragoon while thinking your nose is on fire.
Try to kick safety glass when someone bets you to
Be caught on camera
Cry like a girl for losing out on GSoC and be caught on camera
Try to walk
Throw up
Sleep in your own puke
Feel sad about the random french chick you asked out
Try to grab pixelated boobs off the computer screen
Type
Talk
Take a route through bushes that may harbour snakes
Call your home
Undress

One or more of the above actions might lead to a social bann on your consumption of alcohol :(

Litter

Linux Sucks?

Linux Sucks?

I am a Open Source fanboy. Theres nothing more evil to me than charging for some software you do not even know the workings of. However, after a long array of installing an uninstalling OS/es on multiple hardware, i hate to say that Linux is still a pre beta software. More so, it kinda sucks at everything the other OS/es are good at. However I will much refrain discussing apple here as beyond all hopes, I loathe it. It would be hence a *nix vs win war in the rest of the article.

Lets take bad ole windows for example. Like god and proprietary closed source code, it does work in mysterious ways. However there are things it does nicely where Linux fails.
A. Gaming: From time to time, after a hard days work, I think i deserve a lap at NFS or some frag service. Or sometimes I like to spend time on some MMO I know or maybe a round of DOTA. In all these times, I hatefully need to turn to windows. Apart from the fact that most games have indeed been coded for the winbox, theres another major problem with the hardware subsystem itself. Natively compiled quake for Linux drags on the latest NVidia hardware. In all such cases, lin blames the driver. But seriously, to me as a consumer if I cant get out the best from the best hardware in market while using Linux, it only proves that Linux is meant for lower end systems. Also its not like i have an alternative as theres not one Linux supported card in the market that would beat a 8800GT.

B. Browsing: In the current state of internet, video browsing is quite a feature. Needless to say, all of it is based on flash and/or silver light. Neither of them work in the best ways on a lin system. Again its not lin to blame, but with the cut-throat competition in the market, Linux needs to specify its own flash decoder which should work just as seamlessly and effortlessly as on windows. Alternately, linux can implement its standards for video sharing and multimedia content on the web and widely promote it, say on various distro sites and so on. Apart from this, another impact that the nicely modular architecture in Linux has on browsing is the sluggishness. The problem is, once my Firefox slows down due to unfairly long sessions or otherwise, so does the rest of my desktop.

C. Eye Candy: The most major flaw of linux is public distribution of software which is not ready, specifically in the eye-candy areas. Compiz and avant are two such applications that have given a huge array of problems over multiple systems. One irritating bug on say compiz is the alt+tab switcher which takes quite sometime to load on many systems. Another one which the awn suffers with is the sluggish resizing and window events related to a gnome-terminal launched from the avant dock pad. On the other hand, winxp and vista and leopard offer much less eye candy, which however is less leaky from my own experience.

However, by no means does it mean that windows or leopard for example are any better. Truth be told Linux is the least of all the evils. It does some awesome things win can never support, the coolest being programming. I honestly believe theres no better platform to write and compile code on than a *nix system. Document editing and any office work, playing music and video [ amarok and mplayer being favorites respectively] and chat[pidgin] are somethings that linux excels at, the real reasons behind a pc. More so, the rate of improvement in linux is much higher than seen on any other OS. A OS 6 years in dev sounds like a joke compared to the 6 month cycle that most *nix distros have. The support that the Linux community and web resources offer are unmatched. More so, given fully supported hardware, I highly doubt anything could come near the benchmarks a *nix system would pull off. That in itself would probably be the solution to everything I mentioned above. However the only way this will ever happen is if Linux gets as popular as windoze. Hence in conclusion, Linux sucks, so please use it :D.