Sacrifices to be made

There have been many many symposiums in the last few days and there will be even more in the coming days. Starting from 4th of this month, we had EMF (Engineering Mathematics Festival) where I made the finals of Quiz and Crossie last time over and came second in the quiz. (teaming up with Renju from St.Joseph)  Pity I couldn’t make it in-spite of Gokul and A.J inviting me over. Sorry guys. 😦 The finals of all the math events was on the 5th. On 5th we also had some dept symposium in Jerusalem engineering college. On 5th and 6th, we also had all the department symposiums in Jeppiar Engineering College. Pretty crowded week this.

SSN culturals started yesterday and we also had Sastha engineering colleges symposium yesterday. Hari from SSN had invited me for the SSN general quiz and it’s today. Sad I again can’t make it.

Symposium crazy:

I for one attend every symposium possible. Last semester, in-spite of being denied OD, I bunked classes to attend symposiums and my attendance was something like 70 %. (They can disallow you from writing exams if your attendance is below 75 % ) So, why on earth am I not attending symposiums when I don’t even have college to attend this time over ?

FINAL YEAR PROJECT 😦 – I haven’t even started on it and there’s a lot to do. I am supposed to show the entire working model this coming Thursday and I have no clue what I am doing. I had claimed to have finished certain modules by the first review. Truth is, it was existent only on the power point slides. 😀 SO, now I have to pay for it and sit and slog and make sure that I complete it on time. That reminds me, I need to stop blogging for a while too.

Ametors Quiz – Final Round Questions

 

I am presenting questions of what was supposed to be the first round in the IT departments quiz (General Trivia). Some of these questions may have been modified later or even removed. It is equally possible that other questions were added. Most of the questions, I am sure you have seen before.(if you were there,on the day of the symposium that is.)

IT Quiz-Finals-Round 01

(I thought of posting it as ORK-04, but then these questions do not qualify for online quizzes and people have already seen the questions. So ORK 04 waits for now.)

There are two slides where audio is required. Since my blog does not support audio files, I am presenting the same for downloads.

Audio Files

I shall be uploading the slides with the answers pretty soon too. (Not yet, just in case people are looking at these questions for the first time.) Once everything is uploaded, you can download them onto the same folder and they should work fine. (The hyperlinks I mean)

P.S: Thanks to Abhi for the questions.

Ametros Quiz

I had gone to college today to see the Ametros Quiz. By the time I went, the prelims was already over and the finalists announced. Vinod had come to college at my/Abhi’s request/invitation. He was a little miffed that I turned up late. 😛 Krishna and team, Sundar and team, Hari and Rahul from SSN were prominent teams on stage. There was also this one guy from KCG whom I do not know personally. I have seen him a few times though. Other than that we had one team which was a SSN/Sathyabama and two more teams from SSN.

I also saw Samba from Sai Ram and Ambi from St.Joseph. These guys had turned up late and hence could not take the prelims . 😦

The finals started a little behind schedule thanks to the other on stage events. Two rounds were over at the end of which two teams were eliminated.  We had three more rounds in which to decide the winners. Unfortunately this CSE bloody dean or some cheap puck* had to interfere and asked to wind the quiz up. Man, it was just getting started!! I don’t know what bothers these pricks!!

So Abhi was kinda helpless and we had to wind it up with just one more round – Rapidfire. And that didn’t go too well either. Abhi had worked pretty hard for the Finals rounds and he was obviously irritated with the way things turned out. But there was very little that could be done about it.

Krishna and team came third, KCG team came second and the SSN/Sathyabama team came first. Sad that the two people I know better than the others, Sundar and team and Hari and Rahul didn’t win. But then these things happen. Plus today’s quiz was more of a curtailed event.

I might put up the other rounds here on my blog under ORK -03 after due consultation with Abhi. So stay tuned…

Saarang Online Quiz 02 – Answers

Once again, a post that’s been waiting for a while now. Somehow, the answers of the set 02 was never officially released and the winners weren’t announced either. What a splendid way to hold on-line events. Put up questions there, promise prizes and then conveniently forget about it.

Here are the answers ( or atleast I believe they are) to the questions of Saarang Online Quiz #02. But before I present that, here’s a copy of the questions.

Saarang Online Quiz 02

Answers:

Before we go into the answers, I would like to thank Shiva and Hari for their help with some of the answers.

1) Dynamic level editors with multi-player support.

2)

Ana Maria Oroczo (from Yo Soy Betty La Fea. Which was the original Colombian show form which JJKN was adapted.)

Mona Singh (from Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin)

America Ferrera (from ‘Ugly Betty’ also adapted from Yo Soy Betty La Fea)
3)

They are the only three Presidents of India to be honored with a Bharath Ratna before being elected as President.

4)

Agatha Christie

5)
6)

Shiney Ahuja – Bhool Bhulaiya (Hindi)
Prabhu Ganeshan – Chandramukhi (Tamil)
Suresh Gopi – Manichitrathazhu (Malayalam)

They all play the same characters in different versions (language) of the same movie. (Originally shot in Malayalam.)

7)

Ivar Giaever (not sure of this)

8)
Serial killers from USA.

Charles Manson
Albert Fish
John Wayne Gacy
Henry Lee Lucas
9)

Morse code used by BBC – ‘V for Victory’

During World War II, the BBC used the four-note motif to introduce its radio news broadcasts because it evoked the Morse code letter “V” (for “victory”) (dot-dot-dot-dash).
10)

Vodafone – (The Main Sponsor of Saarang-08)

The ‘07 and ‘06 sponsors were Airtel.

‘05 Sponsors were Nokia

‘04 Sponsors were E-Serve

11)

Albert Einstein (of this I am not sure)

If you know the answers to the questions to which I did not find/post the answers, you are invited to post answers in the comments section.

Chronicles of me MIA: Part 04

2nd February:

Ok, it’s been about 20 days since this happened, so I do not recollect things all that well. We were supposed to have gaming on this particular day. The Kriya Open Quiz prelims was sometime in the evening. I remember vaguely, qualifying for the second round of NFS MW. Vibu , Vivek and Co. had qualified for the CS second round. Sidharth had also come along. Since the gaming arena was damn crowded, we had to wait a long time for our turns. On top of that we had to pay 10 rupees for registration. All I could manage in between all of this was to crack the Crossword that was given in the magazine. I cracked it along with Vivek and Vibushan. Shyam helped out with one final answer. We then submitted it where we were asked to. I somehow got Vibu also to submit one entry. Vivek wouldn’t listen.

We went had lunch outside. We found the shabbiest of hotels just outside PSG and somehow downed our food with Mountain Dew. To this day it remains a mystery if we ate Chicken Biryani or not. We ordered something called Plain Biryani. Now, some people tell us that plain biryani is Chicken biryani with the chicken pieces removed. Still others seem to think that the biryani in Chicken biryani is cooked separately and the chicken pieces added afterwards.

After lunch, we attended “Googler” and “Mouse Handler”. Vibu and me gave Googler the miss and Vivek gave Mouse Handler the miss. Googler was just plain googling. You were given 5-6 images which you had to find online. Not as easy as it seems. It helps if you are into quizzing though. Mouse Handler was again a set of 5 images which we had to use to design something creative. I did design something creative, but I don’t know why I was not selected 🙂

Now all that was left was the Open Quiz. Me, Shyam and Vivek formed a team. Vibu and Sid also stayed. Quiz was done by Gopal Kidao from QFI. We had Frankies just before the quiz as we were hungry. Because of goofing up the prelims (I am solely responsible for this. As always I told my team-mates that I was sure that the answer they were giving me was not the right answer. I’ve done this even before 😉 as Shiva and Madhu will confirm) Had we got those answers right, we would probably have qualified for the finals. Worst of all was that two school teams qualified for the finals. 😦 I am no longer going to call myself a quizzer. We were at-least happy that these chaps would not be there the next day for the Intercollegiate quiz.

Vivek, Sid left immediately after the prelims. Me and Vibu decided to stay back. So did Shyam. The finals was won by Samanth, Sumo and Jayakanthan. (Not very surprising.)

Vibu and I had dinner at “The Park” in stadium quite late at night and then went home. We shit chatted a bit before going to sleep.

3rd February:

Well, I had the finals of gaming, the inter-collegiate quiz , the Crossword results and my prize money for Paper Presentation to look forward to. The Inter-Collegiate quiz was in the morning and Shyam was supposed to team up with me. Shyam came to the gaming arena huffing and puffing some 40 minutes after the scheduled time of the prelims. He had lost his phone on the the way from home to college and had no way of contacting me. 😦 Sad. We went to the quiz venue only to find that it was almost over. People were handing in their entries. We somehow got a answer paper and started going through the questions frantically. We did the quiz in something like 30 seconds. Obviously we did not qualify. We scored some 6 and as far as I heard 8 was the highest score. If only Shyam had not lost his phone. If only we had made the quiz on time, maybe we would have qualified. But then that did not happen. Shyam went phone hunting immediately afterwards and I went back to the gaming arena.

I qualified the second round of NFS too and then the third round. Now only the finals was left. At around the same time, my friends were doing pretty well in CS. 4 of amrita’s teams had made it to the top 6, and the organisers somehow managed to get Amrita playing Amrita. Of the two Amrita teams that emerged, they were again asked to play each other!! That’s where Vibu and Viveks team went down. Some bad organising with the home team being given wild card entries and all.

I drove pathetically in the finals of NFS. Somehow I thought I would win this race, but it was not to be. I once again came third on 4th. I now have the dubious distinction of never having won an NFS finals after having qualified some half a doze times.

So, now all that was remaining was the Paper Presentation prize and the crossword results. This was the most annoying part. I was asked to wait some 2 hours before I was given the certificate for the Paper Preentation and another 30 minutes before they announced the results of the Crossword. Me and Vibu were among the winners apparently. To add to the already bad organisation, I was told that my prize money would be sent to me by mail!! Whoa!! You made me wait two and a half hours to tell me that ? And I had made Vibu and vivek wait with me. I still haven’t received my prize money by the way. 

Amidst all this, someone from Googler called me and I was told that I had won and they wanted to know my college name so that it could be written on the certificate. Now, both me and Vivek were bewildered because both of us had got only 4 on 6 right. After getting Shyam to investigate the matter, I found  out that I had won a participation certificate!! (Actually not even that. It’s a long story and not worth it. So I won’t go into it.)

We left from PSG and went to Barista in R S Puram for my treat. (Which was foolish of me since I hadn’t even got the money yet!!) Rajani and Sid also joined me, Vivek and Vibu. I was a little low on cash. So, I told everyone that they could have one item form the menu. Thankfully, my friends were considerate enough not to order the most expensive stuff on the menu. 🙂

We went to Viveks home briefly after that and then back to Vibushan’s house. I had dinner at Vibu’s place. Here, I packed as my train was early in the morning and then we talked some more before going to sleep.

4th February:

Somehow managed to get up on time and get ready for the train. As always Vibu was more than nice to drop me at the station. Got my train on time. It was the bloody sitting train. I don’t want to go into how bad the journey was. All along the way, I cribbed and whined to Vibu and Vivek about it. And once I neared Chennai , to my friends here. Somehow came to Chennai at about 14:30. Got an AC bus to Thiruvanmiyur. Came back home took some rest, and then went to Cafe Coffee Day in Ascendas in the evening with Abhi and Gari for yet another premature treat. 😀 It was fun though and in a way nice to be back in Chennai.

Saarang08 – Creative Writing Entry-Part 02

Now Coming to the entry itself. I must say that it was pretty sad. Further we were allowed to submit three entries with each of the scores adding up. I however was not in the mood to write more than one. So even before I gave in my entry, I knew that in-spite of my shrewd calculations, I would not make it through.

The entry:

Sachin was finding it hard. Just flapping his eyelids was getting hard. He felt like he had been drugged. It was hard even breathing. His heart was beating unusually fast. Was this a dream ? What was really happening ? He stayed there, lying like a wax statue at Madame Tussands’. There was a searing pain in his head like a laser was cutting it.

He tried hard remembering what had happened in the last few minutes. It might even have been days. He wasn’t sure. He tried making his brain send magicsignals. The nerves and dendrites must listen!! Else this might take infinite time. He was at-least glad he knew his mathematics. This lightened his anxiety. With a little luck he might even get up.

Then he tried remembering where he was and why he was there at all. He suddenly felt a sickening pain in his gut. He was sweating. It felt like being trapped in a spiders web with butter spread-a ready meal.

His head seemed like clearing after what seemed like perpetuity. His heard cheering and his eyes were blinded by light. His heart beat was getting alright. Then everything cleared up in his head. It wasn’t a dream alright. He was in the cricket pitch, just hit by a Brett Lee beamer. Thankfully his helmet had taken the hit and he was still there in the middle. And that’s all that really matters. 

I know it’s something you want to laugh at. 🙂 Honestly even I think I goofed it up bad. As it turned out, following constraint 10 crippled my writing.

Saarang08 – Creative Writing Entry-Part 01

I had Promised to upload my entry for the Creative Writing event of Saarang08 in my earlier post Chronicles of me MIA: Part 01. I somehow never found the time all this while. Finally I am jobless again. (Not really. I am jobless by choice actually.)

I had to tear-off one side of the rules and hand it out along with my entry. So I don’t have that with me. 😦 I have another side though. If I remember rightly, the first page of the rules said something to the effect of on what scale you would be evaluated for picking a certain type of article. For Instance if it was a Newspaper article, you would be rated on a scale of 1- 10. For a play you would be rated on a scale of 1 -15. and so on.

Once rated on the scale, your score would be multiplied by the points you get for following certain constraints. Which constraints you wanted to follow was left to you and you were allowed to club more than one constraint together. (multiplier would then be cumulative of individual points)

I present the list of constraints here:

0. Your entry must be creative, just like this rule (1 point)

1. Your entry must be in less than 400 words.(2 points)

2. Your entry must start with the words: (4 points)

(i) It crashed without making a sound. So, naturally, no one noticed it falling…”

(ii) There were ten years to make up for…

(iii) All around, there was darkness…

3. Your entry must end with the words: (4 points)

(i) “And no one saw it again.”

(ii) “And so it began.”

(iii) ….that’s all that really matters.

(iv) …happiness is a choice.

4. your entry must contain 5 words of your own creation which must be either introduced to the reader within the entry itself or be self explanatory. (5 points)

5. Your entry must be in standard iambic pentameter. (5 points)

6. Your entry must contain a sentence that repeats itself at least 5 times in the entry. (10 points)

7. Your entry must be written in a shape that describes the theme of the entry. (15 points)

8. Your entry must contain at least 10 words from this list: (20 points)

 magic, prize, mathematics, butter, perpetuity, masquerade, heart, wax, dream, luck, yellow, laser, web, rumination, ministry, card

9. Your entry must be such that the first letters of every sentence/line spells out a message. (30 points)

10. Your entry must not contain the letter ‘o’ (50 points) 

Choice of constraints:

I am the greedy type and as soon as I saw constraint 10, I knew that was actually going to be the theme of my entry. We were actually warned that the constraints did not matter if the article was not creative enough. But having been in engineering for 4 years, when it comes to making trade-offs between creativity and a higher multiplier, we choose the > multiplier obviously.

I would automatically qualify for the constraint 0. I also knew I could manage 1. Now constraint 2 could not be managed without breaking constraint 10. So that had to go. I could follow (iii) of constraint 3 and not any other. So that was an automatic choice. I did not have patience and must concede I guess the skill too to stick to 4. 5 didn’t somehow suit my format. (I was writing a short story and not a poem) I was once again not patient enough/skilled enough to follow 6. I asked the co-od if 7 meant I need to put my writing in a physical form and he seemed to think that was funny. * I did follow. 9 I was once again not patient/skilled enough to follow it.

The article follows in the next post to make it readable.

Ametros – IT Dept. Symposium

Impulse, the CSE department Symposium just concluded a couple of weeks back. Next up is the IT Symposium. Christened Ametros (2k8) the symposium falls this Friday. That would be the 22nd of February.

You can check the website here:

Ametros

The Quiz is being done by Abhi. (My current Quiz partner) It’s going to be 5 fun filled rounds with 7 teams qualifying for the finals and 2 being eliminated at the end of round 2. The questions are expected to be mostly General. If anything, we should have technical trivia. So irrespective of your course/department, you are invited to the quiz. If you consider yourself a quiz buff, then this is one event you don’t want to give a miss. If you happen to be in our college, then there should be audience prizes up for grabs. So don’t miss it. 🙂

I hear there are going to be PERSONAL COMPUTERS for first places in the events Paper Presentation, Programming and Code Debugging.

Yet another trip to Coimbatore

I last went to Coimbatore on 31st of January after almost three years. The place is changing, but I atleast knew my way around town.  I am once again travelling tonight. 🙂 Shall be gone for two days and will be back on the 17th evening.

For a change, I got a seat that’s quite far from both the toilets!! Ah, it’s about time. By some luck, even on the way back, my seat is again far from both the toliets. 😀 I am really thankful. Now I am hoping for good looking co-passengers. It would be nice if I got to choose my co-passenger 😉 . But that’s not how it works now, is it ? Oh, and today also happens to be Valentines day. Maybe I’ll have a fling on the train 😉 

Now, I better run along and pack my stuff.

Protected: Chronicles of me MIA: Part 03

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