Karthik’s Log

Demonoid: 

This article is about the torrent site Demonoid. To be more specific peer to peer BitTorrent* tracker. I have been a huge fan of the site for the past few years ever since a friend of mine introduced me to it. Till then I used isoHunt mostly. But found back then that it was being heavily spammed. (It still is…) For instance only after downloading a movie would you realise that it’s 700 MB of junk. (This is hypothetical and does not imply that I downloaded a 700MB movie   ) The worst part was that we had 3000 seeders* for that spam torrent and yet no one could make comments. That’s the worst part about open-to-all sites like isoHunt. Demonoid worked on a strict member to member share basis which meant that spam was hard to come by. And in case someone called a Theatre-print** a DVD-Rip***, other members could comment on the same to correct it so that further downloads could be avoided. It was almost like bliss. You could get almost anything that you wanted. I don’t think it would be a good idea for me personally to divulge into the details of what files I downloaded. To stay away form any trouble, I will just claim that all I ever downloaded was my friends birthday video to which he holds the copyrights anyway . The best part is, they(Demonoid) never asked anything in return for the membership. Just that the share ratio* be maintained above 1.0 .(Even that was not mandatory. Just decency you know) Which is the least you can do for fellow users anyway.

On and Off:

Demonoid has been in trouble for a while now. So it’s not entirely a surprise that the site is down for now atleast. It was initially hosted in Netherlands. That was till June this year when Dutch Copyright guys BREIN sued the host provider of Demonoid. So Demonoid was forced to move to another area. Considering it was moving under controversial circumstances already, it would not have been so welcome anywhere in the world. So they moved to Canada and in no time, CRIA – Canadian Recording Industry Association was telling them they weren’t so welcome after all. This was in September. They just blocked Canadian traffic intially. Then the CRIA threatened the hosts again and the site was down again sometime in November.

Why the site is down ?

While for end users, it was bliss, people who hold copyrights stand to lose a lot. For instance a movie maker would not sell enough original DVD’s if someone bought the DVD and uploaded it on to the net. Everyone else will download it. So the Movie Industry is a big loser. And since these guys are heavy-weights when it comes tomoney and power and they are being threatened, they chose to act.

Another major segment that loses out is the software industry. While the software is selling in the market for exhorbitant prices, here you could get pirated versions of the same with a crack. A crack means that the software would work just like the original. What probably pissed off heavy-weights like Microsoft is the fact that within a week of the Vista release, we had cracked versions of Vista available online. For how much ? Absolutely fricking free of cost!! (Except the bandwidth cost, which is mostly pretty low compared to the prices these guys want.) So we had Anti-virus software, games, photo-editing software…..everything you could think of.

Obviously somewhere down the line these guys thought, enough is enough!! Lets do something about this before we end up on the streets.  

The implications of shutting down torrent trackers:

First things first. No more downloading whatever you want. If the trackers go down completely, then people will be devastated. If Demonoid trackers start going down, then even sites like isoHunt which is just a search engine on its own, can’t do much.  Very soon Airtel and BSNL unlimited connections are going to come down. Yeah there’s still Rapidshare, but that’s actully pretty irritating unless you are a premium user, for which you have to pay money. Sucks!!

The second implication is that there is going to be a lot of socialising between friends. So you will see your friend coming over and offering you the Linkin Park album he downloaded, only to ask for something else in return . Not a bad thing actually. You will get to be good friends with people who have TBs of movies, music and software stashed away!!

Note:

*For terminology related to BitTorrent in case you are alien to the world of file sharing, look into Brian’s BitTorrent FAQ and Guide

**Theatre-print means the movie was shot in a theatre with a camera. More often thatn not it means bad clarity, poor sound quality and peoples silhouette on the screen.

***DVD-Rip means that the print is a compressed equivalent of the original movie released in the market.

I will come to how I got to using this book later. The book I have is the “Second Edition” and had seen 6 reprints by 2003.

My first experience this semester with a local author was with Jayakumar – TQM. Read about it here. 

First I am going to pretend that I think Dr.M.Arumugam is a Medical Practisioner and that I do not know that he works in Anna University in the Physics Department. (Damn, I speak more than is necessary at times.) So I lead you into believeing that he is a Dr with a MBBS and knows his biomedical in and out. We shall excuse all the outlined mistakes as a misinterpretation by the publisher in interpreting a doctors handwriting. You know how it works right …?

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Excerpts from the book:

• Back Cover 

Each chapter  carries an introduction, so many illustrations, problems…… (yea..)

• page 192

Suppose a patient is suffered by atrial fibrillation. First the doctor diagosed that correctly !! (What the ??)

• page 200

During that period, the function of the urinary bladder can be possible by electrical stimulation.

• page 201 – An original touch

If the urine is discharged completely, then the plug is removed and cleaned and can be kept in the pocket.

• page 213

…..technically complex and risk one……. (risk one ??? why dont you risk one of your own )

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There were atleast another 100 such instances of Mr.Arumugam’s personal touch to the otherwise flawlessly copy pasted manuscript. How it works is these people copy paste from some foreign author. But somewhere down the line, their ego makes sure that they do a bit of writing themselves. That’s when they screw up like this.

 How on earth do you expect me to study doctor, when all I am doing is spotting mistakes that made me see the full band of my emotions from rolling on the floor laughing to finally crying ??(out of despair)

My advice to guys at Anna Univ - Guys I swear if only you concentrate on your work rather than noticing who is peeing where, you will do a whole lot better. Shoosh, off to work. And Dr.Arumugam , if you are reading this, next time you can outsource the errata section to me. I promise to get it done for a small amount. I am making this offer to you because you make me laugh so much….You should try a career in stand up comedy too. There’s a lot of money there.

So we got through 4 exams and have another two more to go. Both of the next exams being electives. Here’s how electives are supposed to work. We have 6 subjects in each elective to choose from from which each student votes for his interest. Then depending on the availability of staff and number of students and other factors, we are allowed to choose either one subject or split the class into two and take two subjects. Some times it even so happens that some subject is thrust on us and we are compelled to do that subject. Pity really. Thankfully that didn’t happen with our department. Our HOD is pretty decent really. But another of the deciding yet irritating factors for me when it comes to deciding the elective is the fact that most people in the class do not want subjects that is interesting or will make sure that it will give them employment opportunities. Instead they want subjects which they can easily pass. So we have subjects like Computer Architecture, Computer networks, VLSI , Embedded systems being shot down by students who want to have it easy.

Instead my class guys chose to choose Biomedical Instrumentation. Hell!! The subject is not so bad, but Ill have to agree I was hoping for a better elective now that I am in my final year. Anyway, got to make do with it now. And now that the exam is tomorrow, I beter get started as well. We will cover the other elective later……

Advertisements amuse me a lot. Some of them make a lot of sense and reflect the brain of the person who thought of it in the first place, not to mention the skills of the people who worked on the idea and gave it shape. Almost all advertisements amuse me. Why ? While the good advertisements amusing someone is understandable, the bad ones amuse me because I try and imagine the person who came up with it. The guy/gal must look funny if not the advertisement.

The most recent Videocon has “Shah Rukh Khan” promoting his movie in yet another novel way. Whether he is a good actor or not, man atleast he is creative when it comes to the ways in which to promote his movies. So we will see “Mahendra Singh Dhoni” – captain Indian Cricket Team shake a leg with Shah Rukh Khan in the latest OSO….sorry… Videocon Advertisement. SRK plays Dhoni and Dhoni plays SRK in OSO. I don’t know what Dhoni got out of the deal ? Lot’s of money for sure and maybe now he is friends with SRK. Closer to Deepika Padukone ? Nice try Dhoni… 

Whats the AD all about ? No way I am going to tell you that. That will be broadcast in a thousand useless news channels anyway. First they will show you “The making of the new Videocon Ad.”. Then you will have interviews with SRK, MSD and maybe even the crew members. Some guy from Videocon will the the appor-toonity to say a few things about Videocon in between all the hype and hoopla. I hear the Ad is already on the idiot box….Go watch it…or not

Hey a few hours after I wrote this post, I checked youtube and guess what I found ? The video is available!! Heres the link:

Videocon ShahRukh , Dhoni Brothers Commercial

Before I start, I must confess I never thought I’d be writing about food.  What inspired me to write the post was a friend of mine giving me a couple of “Sunfeast Dark Fantasy” biscuit packets. And hey if it’s interesting(and yummy) to write about then, why not ?

So this is about…yea you guessed it. The delicious and delectable OREO cookies and its Indian counterpart. I had my first OREO cookie courtsey my elder brother who had been to Germany and back. (Well when vegetarians go abroad, they end up eating cookies and stuff like that. Vegetarian food is really expensive ) Till then I was blissfully unaware of a “biscuit” by the name of OREO. But once I was introduced to it, I wanted more!! After finishing off the packets my brother had got home in record time, I had to wait again till he’d go to the US of A and come back with more OREO. And once again it was gone in no time!! Brittania’s Pure Magic has always been good, but is never a match for the OREO.

A few facts about OREO:

• It’s called a “sandwich cookie.” (We Indian’s simply call it cream biscuits) - It has two chocolate cookies with Vanilla cream in between.
• Oreo WaferStix - long wafer sticks with cream filling and covered by chocolate
• Uh-Oh Oreos     – reverse/Inverse OREO’s. They have Vanilla wafer’s and chocolate cream.
• Other Oreos include Golden Oreos, Mini Oreos, Double Delight Oreos, Flavored Oreos, Double Stuf Oreos, Big Stuf Oreos, White fudge Oreos, Milk Chocolate Oreos, ……..

Sunfeast Dark Fantasy:

Sunfeast Dark Fantasy made by ITC is pretty good. Though a poor substitute to OREO, it’s as god as a desi OREO can get. It’s definitely better than Britannia’s Pure Magic ones. But for the health conscious, hey its supposed to contain a lot of calories. So watch it!! Don’t just indulge

For people who will swear by OREO and will not take a substitute, its avilable across all “Nuts n’ Spices” outlets in Chennai I think. It was also available in “Singapore Shoppe” in Thiruvanmiyur and “My Shoppe” in Neelangarai.  

Once in a while I get bored and write a post that makes sure that visitors keep away from my blog for a few weeks atleast. So here’s my latest offering – ” Anna University – Model Question Papers”. Just the other day I was wondering why on earth were people searching for model exam question papers and landing on my site ? I was quite miffed by the fact that people searching for Anna University Model Question Papers landed on my blog. And I thought “How very stupid!!”, because whenever I wanted the model question papers I just went to the Anna University site an downloaded it from there. So I decided to pay a visit to their site.

What did I find ? That all the question papers had miraculously vanished. (Except some for the first years ?) Probably they took it offline because they finally realised it wasn’t in syallbus. Or maybe their server just crashed or something and they didn’t even realise it!! I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the latter.

It’s been a while since I bothered myself with visiting Anna Site. It never has any useful information in there except the results, and that too takes ages to open. So I decided to take matters in my own hands and upload a few papers I had earlier downloaded. It shall take me a while to do this. Check the link presented below to find a few model papers.

Anna University Model Papers.

P.S: Sorry I only have a handful of EEE and ECE related papers. Hey but it’s free so don’t complain. So Long….

While the number of Indian news channels are on the rise, the quality of the content arired on them has been hitting rock bottom. But if thats true why are they still popular ? Call it junk news. Just as your potato chips and aerated drinks. Pretty bad for health I say. And leading the line-up of comedians on news channels is none other than our contender # 1 for the worst Indian journalist award – Arnab Goswami.

This guy has to be the worst jounalist out there. That he is also the “channel content head” and Chief Editor of ”Times Now” also makes the channel the worst news channel for me.

What makes Arnab so silly ?

Firstly I hate his “Peter”. (Madras lingo for show-off ?). Secondly he tries very hard to sound intelligent but comes across as rather dumb. His interviewing style looks as though he hss seen tapes of famous news anchors and tries to copy their expressions and emotions without any reference whatsoever to context. Like he gets angry and frowns when he asks a cricketer ” Congrats on making your 1ooth 100″. Or he simply appears dumb when he says stuff like:

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guest : ”Its been an amazing year for me. I have been playing well and have scored 5 centuries.”

Arnab: “So, you are saying you scored 5 centuries ?”

guest: “Yes (dumbass), that’s what I said”

Arnab: “Yes, you are very good at debating, but aren’t you saying that you were happy that you got those centuries rather than being happy because the team won?” (trying to look fierce!!)

guest: ??????

…………………

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                        I pity this guy really. He is simply no match for a Pranoy Roy or a Karan Thapar. Rajdeep Sardesai, Vir Sanghvi, Vikram Chandra and Sreenivasan Jain can remain happy that this guy makes them look much much better and more intelligent  on TV if nothing else .Even Jhujhar Singh has better charisma. Hell Arnab looks less of a man compared to Barkha Dutt . Maybe even compared to Udita Goswami. He is more like an overgrown schoolboy trying to be a cowboy.

                        I was watching this video of his “Frankly Speaking” with “Sitaram Yechury” and I couldn’t stop thinking “Is this guy The One ?”. The one who ? The one with negative IQ!! I can’t find the video online as of now. But when it is available, I shall post the link and you can see for yourself. Or if there is a re-run of the same, you people can sit back and enjoy. All Sitaram Yechury was doing was smiling simply amused that Arnab was misinterpreting everything he was saying. So when Yechury would clarify, Arnab will announce, “Yes, you are very good at debating Mr.Yechury, but aren’t you holding the Government to ranson?” Ransom my ass. Go get a real job and stop pretending to be a reporter!!

I was just back home from exam and was reading todays “The Hindu” newspaper and found that 22 people had applied for the post of coach!! Who exactly ? Considering no other name other than Kirsten has been announced, I am guessing it must mostly have been even school kids who seriously believe they can do a better job than Greg Chappel. Guys nice try. If only you had apllied along side Mr.Chappal. oops…I mean Chappel. Who can’t do a better job than Greg after all ? India’s record in both Tests and ODI’s not to mention 20 20’s has been better without a coach than it was under Greg Chappel. All the hard work put in by John Wright was undone by this man. Anyway lets not waste net space by talking about a loser Australian. 

I gather from one of the news channels that Gary Kirsten has been shorlisted for the post of coach. Yea like the school kids even stood a chance against him. Hey I just hope that someone else didn’t put his name in. And knowing BCCI , they don’t confirm such things before going to the media. So now you will have a statement from Gary saying “Man, when did I even apply?”.  Look what happened with Graham Ford. He finally said I’d rather coach Kent!! As for Emburey, poor guy. Graham Ford made sure he wouldn’t get the job. If only he had pulled out before deciding after getting the job and not said, ”darn….I like kent better”.

Gary Kirsten as a player:

Gary Kirsten was a terrific batsman. A left handed opener from South Africa, he’d still be among runs if he was playing. He is not even all that old. He’s 40. But so is the current Indian test captain. Well almost.  He was a nightmare for the Indian bowlers and most other bowlers too around the world. Hid 188* against UAE was the second highest score in ODI (I thought the highest, but it seems Viv Richards made 189*.)till Saeed Anwar came up with his knock of 196* against the Indians right here in Chennai. It’s been 10 years and no one has surpassed Anwar’s record. He was equally prolific in tests as he was in ODI’s and was a vital cog in the Proteas’s wheel under Hanse Cronje. I have vivid memories of watching Kirsten and Andrew Hudson open the innings fo SA.

Gary Kirsten as Coach:

Though he has handled no high profile teams as on date, soon after his retirement from Test cricket in March 2004, Kirsten embarked on a coaching career, taking up an assignment as Cricket South Africa’s high performance manager, after which he set up the privately-run Gary Kirsten Cricket Academy. I think he will make a fine coach even if he does not bring about a sea change in Indian cricket. (As suggested by Mr. Chappal, nevertheless not implemeneted.) He is a soft spoken man and I think he won’t go around India showing the finger to the press. Yea not by accident either. If he gels well with the team and can somehow put the subtle points across the players, we have a winning team. But he has his task cut-out….All the very bets Gary, if it was indeed you that applied

Design of Electrical apparatus. A wonderful paper!! I meant the subject and not the question paper. Every unit makes sense. And the prescribed book by A.K.Sawhney has seen more than 30 reprints and is used throughout the country. Proof enough of how good the book is. I am sure many people wouldn’t have used this book. I feel sorry for them.

Coming to the question paper itself, dead easy!! As easy as easy can get. The only trouble I really had was in picking which of the two questions to write.  But hey we deserve this. After having three papers what with each one getting worse than the previous, we needed a welcome break. I feel sorry for the people who did all of the designs in all units viz, stator and rotor design, commutator design …etc. None of it was asked really. All you had to know was the output equation, associated theory and Main Dimensions calculation.

Atleast something to cheer about in almost 15 days since exams started. Yea!! I am keeping my fingers crossed for the next paper as well.

Have you ever watched presentation ceremonies of the cricket matches played in India ? Have you also watched the same presentation ceremony when the match is held overseas ? If you have, then you should know that the one difference (apart from the fact that India never wins abroad, and hence never lifts the cup in presentation ceremonies.) is that here we have 20 so called dignitaries on the diaz. Infact the diaz has to be made of reinforced steel or something. With maybe even concrete. Abroad, you just have make shift podiums. Say, Four people come to the presentation.

 Over here ? Nah. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to be on the podium. So we have the Chief Minister of the state where the match is being held, the District Collector, four presidents of that cricket club, five vice-presidents, The CEO , president and vice-president of every sponsor company. On top of that we have four or five representatives from BCCI to show who is the boss. Sharad Pawar, Niranjan Shah, Lalit Modi. And then we even have Shah Rukh Khan these days, promoting his movies wearing T-shirts that publicly announce the name of his next movie!! It’s a bloody circus out there, I tell you!!

Why are indians like this ? They like publicity. They like  to be on television. They want a photograph with Sachin or Dhoni or whoever. They even want to sneak in a word of advice or two just before handing the cheque because they know the player will not sulk till the cheque is given. Cheapos!! (Darn I couldn’t find a snap of these guys online.)