madthanU

But, YOU NEED THE INTERNET

2011-05-31T09:16:00.004+05:30

I went to Berkeley for a workshop recently (yeah, I'm bragging). University of California, Berkeley.

I arrived at the UCB dormitories reception (had reserved a room there), tired, and, awfully in need of sleep. Poor little me. They had a big desk and four undergrads sitting behind it, all smiling and welcoming. A guy was sitting behind another small table (draped with a we-are-conference-organizing-people table cloth). He interrupted me.

Him: "Hey, you're here for the HotPar workshop?"

Me: "Yeah, can I get my room key?"

Him: "Sure, just a second, I'll look you up."

Girl-behind-big-desk: "Hey, how about I just give a room key to him (_madthanu_) first?"

Him: "Nah. I'll verify his name in my list first.... No. You aren't here."

Me: "Come on, give me the list."

And, the list had around 10 names. I was fairly confident there were many more people staying there for the workshop.

Me: "Are you sure this is the correct list?"

Him: "Sure. You need to call the workshop organizer to fix this up."

Me: "Ok. You have a phone? Mine's out of juice." Damn it, Angry Birds.

Him: "No. There's a paid phone there."

I rang the USENIX people, they were very apologetic, told me to call back in 10 mins. Waited, called back again. They told me to talk with the reception to let me in, and a USENIX person was coming over there in 15 mins to fix everything. By now, the guy-behind-small-table had gone on a break, so I talked to the girl behind the big desk.

Me: "Hey, can you call up the conference organizers and talk to them? They seem to have my name on the list."

Girl: "Hold on. I'll check it here."

Guy (back from his break): "So, what did Jess__ tell you?"

Girl: "Ok, your name is on the room reservation list."

The WHAT list? No, again, what? And ... the girl gave me a room key.

Guy: "But we can't do it, his name is not on the local Internet list."

Local internet list? May be some kind of UCB security thing? Oh, yeah, I remembered it now ... there was some web form related to wired Internet access from the dorm rooms, which I hadn't filled in.

Me: "What? The Internet form is mandatory?"

Guy: "No. But, you need the internet."

Me: "I think I'll just head to my room."

By then, I was feeling like he was pulling my leg. You know, innocent guy from India, don't know anything other than small-time-Wisconsin in the US. But, the guy gave me an am-I-looking-at-an-alien stare which vapourized any questions.

Guy: "But, YOU NEED THE INTERNET."

I didn't know what to say. I felt like ROFL-ing, but again, the way the guy looked at me... Seriously?

Me: "Hmmm... how about I place my bags in my room and head back here later?"

Guy: "Well, yes, but, you need the internet."

Me: "Yes, yes, thanks for helping."

I was (surprisingly) very happy at that point. I had finally met one person who gave Internet the credibility it deserved. I almost felt like going back, hugging him, and saying "Come on, kiddo, ofcourse I need the internet, and I have my 3G connection with WiFi hotspot always. Don't worry about me".

Still, it would do well for us to remember that the internet is only the fourth important thing in life. Important only after food and shelter.

Elay Dhoni

2009-08-01T10:08:00.002+05:30

This post is not about cricket. It is an obvious attempt to post something on a long-unused-blog. And also a movie 'review'.

So when did I start writing about movies? When I saw Modhi Vilayadu (For people who ask when I started watching movies: I usually dont watch, agreed, maanatha vaangathinga).

Last thursday we went to Modhi Vilayadu. We: me, glamour, senthil, vinoth, vijay and fraud. At abirami. Glamour, vinoth's treat. Probably the last treat before I leave.

Ok, why I am writing about the movie: The first half is a complete copy of "100 Days with Mr. Arrogant". And nobody seems to have noticed it. The Korean anime screen play - too much, it is an obvious-copy. Other things:

1. There were only about 75 people in the hall. At Abirami. And it hadn't been a full week after the movie launched.

2. The title song was awesome. So was the background behind the title slides. Seriously.

3. Credit slides included credits for 'punches', 'steps' and 'cuts'.

4. Catapult vachchu adikkura thoorathulla hero-voda helicopter parakkum. Theatre-la girl friend oda cinema paarparu. Aana assasins ellorume hero car ootum pothu thaan avara target pannuvanga (assassin should remain anonymous la - logic). Athuvum, beijing-la irunthu vantha professional assassin rendu adi thoorathulla, innoru car la irunthu, view-sight vachchu aim panni thaan suduvaaru (Athuvum miss aagidum).

5. Dont listen or watch the songs too closely.

I am not gonna tell anything about the actors or songs or anything else - I am not into movies, hope somebody else comments on them :). And the movie was ok, inspite of everything.

Thats all. Thanks to glamour and vinoth. Packing off in a few days. Bye.

Blogging

2009-06-22T15:53:00.001+05:30

Globus crashes Earth

2009-02-20T01:40:00.001+05:30

Do not get fooled by the title.

I had several installations of Fedora on my computer, and one of them was named 'Fedora-Earth' in the Grub menu. It was my favourite.

It crashed today when I was trying to install the Globus toolkit.

It contained numerous package installations, served as a Primary Domain Controller, survived me trying to hack it, had numerous kernel modifications, and held the record for the longest surviving OS in my laptop.

It is survived by two of it's disk image copies, Fedora - Green and Fedora - Genie, both created 4 months back.

Let Earth rest in peace.

Long time, no see - BSNL #@!~^

2009-02-12T06:25:00.003+05:30

Im back after a long time. And its the same old excuse - BSNL. I haven't got anything that can be called "broadband" for 2.5 months now. The time line:

1 week - phone line was dead
1 week - no internet connection
4 weeks - internet connects every wednesday and thursday (I complain on monday, BSNL "repair"s on tuesday, things stop working on friday, and its no use complaining on week ends)
2 weeks - internet gets disconnected every sixty seconds - I don't know how you technically explain it, but it was exactly multiples of sixty seconds
3 days - surprise, internet works fine
4 days - back to no connection
1 week - I get a 6 KBps connection

Intha kandraavikku naan kaasu vera ketturen. I finally decided to kick BSNL and get a Tata Indicom. BSNL has more resources, sure. Problem is, IT SIMPLY DOESNT WORK. For people who may support BSNL in the comments (Glam): dont, or i'll heck you when I get the chance.

One good thing - I learnt to live outside blogosphere (I never posted anyways, but I was addicted to surfing blogs). Only reason I'm posting now is that theres an "I Too Have A Blog" Category in latecut, and I dont want my blog ending up there. Hail Jegan (and Guru?).

Philosophy in CompSci

2008-11-20T10:59:00.004+05:30

I did'nt really believe everything in PhD till I had this conversation with Aravind Narayanan (he's doing a MS at Stan):

madthanu: u r supposed to b busy

Aravind Narayanan: hehe
Aravind Narayanan: supposed is the operative word

madthanu: if u rnt busy
madthanu: y dont u sleep?

Aravind Narayanan: work da
Aravind Narayanan: projects
Aravind Narayanan: assignments
Aravind Narayanan: problem sets
Aravind Narayanan: :(

madthanu: u have all these bt say u rnt busy?

Aravind Narayanan: i have reached a state
Aravind Narayanan: where
Aravind Narayanan: i choose not to be busy
Aravind Narayanan: we have choice!
Aravind Narayanan: freedom!

madthanu: u got into philosophy?

Aravind Narayanan: i don't have an impending deadline

Deepavali Thaththuvam

2008-10-27T23:39:00.001+05:30

Famous Quotes - 2

2008-10-26T14:14:00.005+05:30

When I asked Aishwarya and Samaya whether the previous post was OK, they started ranting off many funnier quotes they remembered. I had to make them stop.... Here are some of them (I will post some funny dialogues from Vinod next):

"Dei, all these guys are just passisng clouds da - they will come & go, but I am eternal like the blue sky" - Raghuram on Aishwarya's new BFs (Source: Rajesh)

"Naangellam sattaya kazhatina ulla oru salman khan irukkan.... Bayandhuraadha" - Deepak Raja

"Aiyyo enna vitrunga.... Kadavuley enna kaapathupa!!", followed by a series of long kozhi sounds - Rajesh, on SpaceJam in Veega Land

"Itho paaru, nee onnum velai ku pogavendam. na velai ku poren. Nee pesama veetla oru sambar..." - Samaya to Deepak Raja (Ppl were ootifing them together)

"God is really great.. Enna un bus ku varavechu.. Anga Nitin nu oru mama va set up panni.. (sigh) God is really really great..!!" - Deepak Raja

Ajay, SECRETLY giving a ring to Aishwarya (Again, ootified pair) : "Hey, ithu yen ring illa, divya kittendu suttuten... Na thirupiyum lobby la official la propose panren"

"Aadu malai a paakavantha ajay aishwarya va paathu mayangitan!!" - Samaya

Rajesh on how he got hit with a hollow plastic ball: "chinna vayasula intha maari oru SHORP object la idichu...." .... (he was pointing to a blunt bus handle)... "illa illa, itha vida oru SHORP object la idichu, nethi adi vaangiten".... Athula vera, avan chinna vayasula rombha AGGRESSIVEa velayaadinaanam

"Deepak raja thoongi ara mani neram aache!!" - Deepak Raja, in bus, when people were ootifing him (he said that himself)

"Inga naa aamblaya, illa neeya?..." - Ajay to Aishwarya, when they were dancing

If you dont know what 'to ootify' means, just keep watching this blog :)

Famous Quotes

2008-10-23T18:55:00.007+05:30

Ok, I waited long for somebody else to post this, but since everybody seems to have chickened out, here are the quotes that became famous during our IV (IV = somethings + tour):

"I cannot process tamil at 6.30 in the morning" - Rohit, half asleep and speaking on phone

"Polaamaaa daaaa" - Nitin

"Enakku ethavuthu arrange panniruve'la?" - VC, to The Bun

"***************" - Jegan ... I cant quote him, my blog will be removed by the bot

"I graduated" - The Bun .... Vinod wanted VC, Srikant to be mentioned here, guess why

"Adikkutha?"...Polo..."Adikkutha?" - VC ... context: he said this when he finally returned to his room on his birthday (night)

"F*** Dude" - Fraud

"Intha photo eppadi irukku" - Raghu Ram .... Some of his photos were really good, heres my favourite of Mr. G:

"Angaye ukkaru da"- Samaya

"Sometimes it feels like the world’s on my shoulders"- Logesh, dancing (supposedly rapping)

"I would like it too", VC, sarcastically to Rohit, when Rohit said he was liking the attention he was getting from the gals

Here's more, contributed by Jegan:

“macha, national security da.. what if we sell the pictures of indian natural wealth?” - Sivaguru, on why they charged for cameras in Eravikkulam National Park

"maangaa sappunga.. masakkaiku romba nalladhu" - Mango vikkuravanga, to KooChee

And much more, contributed by The Bun (he wanted to say more, but I didnt put it all in):

"Ripple effect ....where u throw a stone into water and the bling happens" - Vinod, when asked to explain Ripple effect, supposedly when he was half senseless

"machan ...if i dont do something now...the whole tour will be a bore da..." - Nitin, in bus

"machan i will definetly be with u the whole iv da.." (sunday) .... "machan i am with u la..didn't go anywhere..." (wednesday) .... "machan, sorry da ....i forgot abt u totally da ...." (friday) - Kant ... context: Friday was veega land day, and Kant had a lot of ..err.. company

"machan nan rowdy da..." - Jegan

"ivalo panitom ..itha pannamatoma..." - Anand

"cheers ...for long life" - Ajay, with empty glass

On after thought, somebody should record the quotes made after IV too

The IV

2008-10-09T08:10:00.007+05:30

After waiting for someone to post on the kochi IV, i have decided to post some photos myself... Goyyarengala, are you all chicken hearted? Post things about the trip, everybody knows there is too much to post.

About the photos: I made my picasa account nearly full, and have photo tagged almost all photos...
Heres the album

I also made fanalbums for some people(cudnt put these photos into the main album, you'll get bored after seeing the same faces again & again) - in descending order by size of fanalbum:
vijay
logesh
rajesh
srivats
pradep
vinod
jegan
raghuram
srikant

Comments are welcome on the photos, especially uglifing ones.

Dont miss out the videos (picasa slideshow doesnt display them correctly sometimes), and the stitched photos in VC's and Pradep's albums.

Edit: I havent uploaded <> photos/videos(/audio recordings), and most of you would be wanting them... just ask me in private

The real grad life

2008-09-21T14:47:00.004+05:30

Heres something thats got me addicted : Piled High and Deeper
See more for yourself on this site.

Ithu Treeeat vaaram

2008-08-24T13:37:00.004+05:30

I suttufied that title from VC.

For the past one month, culminating this week, I have had too much of partying-kind-of-stuff, not to mention a birthday. K, heres some I will never forget for the rest of my life:

1. I got my first materialistic birthday present (not counting the tours, eating-outs, phone calls or email viruses) in two years - a cup from vijay, sivaguru and smrithi (yeah, they gave me a cup). That was last month.

2. This friday, me, nitin, vijay, RV gave a treat to the boys in our class. It was in the residency, we mass bunked a TQM class, and Raghu Ram faced Paparazzi (us) while eating. Ill write more about this in a seperate post later.

3. Treat with some first year batch mates + Jegan (prev post) - this thursday.

These are by no means the only things i want to say (dont ask pradep how we wanted to go to the besant nagar beach, i confused it with marina, and some of us ended up at the mylapore temple - wednesday). I am off to another treat now, will post more later.

Mes amis a la Planet Yum (I got that correct?)

2008-08-24T13:22:00.011+05:30

I gave a treat (Birthday, Mic, i-dunno-wat) to some first year batch mates + Jegan. It kinda turned unexpected. First, a little intro of us:

Me, Muthu, Jeffy aka Jefferson, Srinath: We are quiet (believe me). Jeffy's the best pandu, Srinath is the quietest and Muthu's the strong man.

Ramasamy Logesh: Mmmmm.... what do you say about this guy?.... K, the whole class knows. Anyways, we take ootifing him for granted, and hes never complained about us ootifing (we like him equally well).

Jegan: Ever heard of a monkey with a lot of brains? This guy can shut your mouth in under a minute if u speak anything technical to him, especially after he did an intern at Mic. (Payyan Hyderabad poittu vanthathula irunthu romba kettu poittan - photo pose kudukka sonna asingamma kaiyla sign kaamikkuraan).

I planned to go for the treat in a gap of about two hrs between classes - but others didnt want to 'rush' it up. Appove yoosichirukkanum, rendu mani neram enaththa panna poranungannu. So we started after classes. The jegan monkey had slept off somewhere and wasnt picking up the phone. We left him and went to Wang's kitchen. gr8, it was closed. Muthu (i think) suggested we go to besant nagar beach and then have dinner (me: Achacho, i had been avoiding the beach - kumurrathukku nalla idam). We went to the beach, and Jegan joined us later. We had fun - Lokesh kept saying that 'saaraayam' and mercury are the same (theliva illa pola), Jegan danced (actually, konjam stunt routines pannunaan, but look at the photos above), and we tried to push Lokesh from that monument in the centre of the beach.

We then went to planet Yum... I have never seen that kinda place - i know the normal planet yum, where you go to the eateries and buy your stuff... Here, there were waiters for each eatery, and they were acting like salesman who will have comissions on the bill. As soon as we sat down, all of them came together and we were outnumbered - platformla ella pichcha kaarangalum sernthu vantha maathiri. Athu kooda parava illa, oruththan vanthu first roundukku milk shake offer panraan. Enakku non veg items avalava theriyaathu. So others ordered, but the clear soup was clearer than water and there wasnt any chicken in the fried rice. We ordered deserts, and I was like 'cha, ithukku pesaama namakku therinja ethavuthu nalla veg restaurantla vachirukkalaam'.

I was telling the others that we'll go out and enjoy the beach again (it was 8 already), but logesh said he had ordered coffee (yaya, coffee.... konjam overa illa?). Ok, i waited, and after about 20 mins, in which Coffee Day was supposedly preparing coffee, i became a little suspicious. After that came a BIG chocolate cake, with a candle on it. We had some difficulty in lighting thecandle (we were next to the beach), and then part of the cake went all over my face. It was supposedly a way of not wasting the cake, since it was too big to go into our stomach. I posed for photos, in which the same piece of cake was kept in front of my mouth by each member in the group (kanjanunga). We finally ended the cake routine and started home. Best treat of my life(not that i sponsored many) - whod expect jegan and srinath (they didnt even come to the iv), logesh (ppl who dont really know him wudnt believe that he thot of a surprise cake?), jeffy and muthu (jeffy hadnt even seen besant nagar beach before)? Thanks ppl.

Open Source, Bugs and Politics

2008-05-18T01:33:00.005+05:30

The following is supposedly one of the 7 critical bugs in pidgin:

Ron Paul is not president yet

Despite being the obviously superior candidate in all parties combined, Ron Paul does not seem to have the 2008 US Presidential race in the bag.

Expected Results:

Ron Paul wins every primary, caucus, and election by a landslide.

Actual Results:

The American public seems to be ignorant of the values of this candidate, and consequently gives him less than his voting due.

Know whats more funny? Sean Egan has been assigned to solve this....

Mindsets and relationships

2008-05-12T06:31:00.004+05:30

Pre script: This post looks philosophical, and a real polambal, so people who are trying to get fun, move next.

This is the hardest part of my life so far. Mbbe Im responsible for it (Pothum endra manam.... ). Im going through the first phase in my life where I need to 'know' people.

My problem is I have to now look at people differently. It all started when I told appa & amma that I hadnt decided what to do next (PG, job etc.). They kept suggesting to ask cousin XXX or friend YYY.

How I like to remember cousins and friends is - the one who taught me monopoly, the one who tries to scare me(I was a real hero, he always failed), the one who pushed me into a ditch, or the one who wrote code to tell Im a donkey. It is really awkward to now think of them as the one who got a job in TCS, or the one who is researching in AMD. It is never a problem asking them help, I did always ask from people computer games or zoo visits. But it is really difficult to think of them in this new way. It is idiotic asking XXX about things when I am trying to guess what his next move would be for scaring me. Even if I did not want any thing, I am now supposed to be an adult, and so am supposed to think of them in a 'matured' way(I dont really understand it).

I dont know how many of you think of this as being difficult, but it is for me. People for whom this had been simple, you are really great.

BSNL internet problem - how exactly to solve

2008-04-30T13:12:00.009+05:30

I got back my bsnl dataone(broadband) internet connection after 15 days.... only to find the BSNL DNS server is sleeping again. This has been a problem for too long , but people normally think their connection has some other fault.

Here's a how-to for the i-dunno-computers on how to make the bsnl connection work (if it isnt working due to dns server fault) on Win XP:

1. Go to My Computers -> Control Panel (If you cant find it here look through the start menu for 'control panel', must be there somewhere).

2. Look for 'Network Connections' and double click it. If it isnt there, double click on ' Network and Internet Connections', double click it, then look for 'Network connections' and double click.

3. Here you will have 1 or more icons. Look for something starting with 'Local Area Connection', if there is a wire between your computer and your modem/router, and something with 'Wireless' if you use a wireless connection from your router. If you have more than one starting like that, you are out of luck, you must call somebody who knows stuff to help you out.

4.Right click on the icon and choose 'properties'. Here, click on 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' - try scrolling down if that isnt visible, and click on 'Properties' button.

5. Now, note down everything in the screen that appears, you must type (or click) all this back if you do something wrong.

6. There will be things like 'Obtain an IP address automatically' and 'Use the following IP Address' - dont touch that, they do reduce problems if configured correctly, but be safe. There will be 'Use the following DNS server addresses' next to a small circle. Click on the circle.

7. Now, in the box to the right of 'Preferred DNS Server', type '128.107.241.185' (without quotes). Make sure what you have typed has come in the box, or type again. Similarly, for 'Alternate DNS Server' , type ' 218.248.240.135' .

8. Now click on 'OK', then on 'OK' again. You are done!

The two number-like-things at step 7 are 'DNS address'es - the first one is Cisco's public server, and the second one is a BSNL server.... You can google for 'open DNS server' or just look at this to get lots of other DNS servers you can use (just in case those I told have failed).

Im really becoming mad

2008-04-25T22:38:00.004+05:30

I have been dejected, depressed, sad and whatever-negative-things-you-know for the last 10 days. Guess why.

Because of the sem exams? Sure no - I wouldnt be sane if i could worry for that.Gal? Me? HAHAHAHOHOHO

Its the internet. My 'broadband' stopped working last friday, curse bsnl. Here I was, trying to ask Google who someone-i-dont-remember was, when i got disconnected from the whole outside world. That was usual, usual for a bsnl connection i mean, to remind me that it was late in the night, and I should go to sleep - everything would be right in the morning. It wasnt, curse bsnl again.

I called bsnl on monday - sweet-voice-no.1 assured that everything would be right in 24 hours. 24 hours - i called after 48, and sweet-voice-no.2 told that something was wrong with a port (mbbe i dint study networks good enough) - and it would be fixed in 24 hours. Curse the hell, got the same explanation next time I called. So i continue my nail biting.

So am I addicted to the internet? It isnt the internet actually - its the world wide web, information on your hands any time you want it. I really dont care about yahoo messenger, but google and wikipedia....

It isnt addiction - its a habit - you go to the hindu website when theres a copy in the hall, you would rather log in to webpicasa even if you know the photos are somewhere in the desktop, or you look in google to know what day 12-05-2009 is.

Wish i can get into the world soon - and CURSE BSNL

Resurrection

2008-04-12T21:07:00.002+05:30

Its nearly a year since I posted... and I promise my blog will be more interesting from now...

So why this sudden re-interest? I have got too many experiences i wanna share? Im having too much free time? Want to impress people?

Nah.

The actual thing is - google search is an idiot - keeps throwing up this blog when u search for 'madthanu'. Agreed, no ones really gonna search, but still, when billy gates wants to know about this kid who bet him in the market, and uses google, it wudnt be very nice to get an ancient blog.

So, i started doing things - checked through blogger to remove google indexing - wasnt there. Tried to remove the blog altogether - maybe was there, but felt some nostalgia and decided against. Googled for google bombing, read blogs, and tried to somehow take this blog down in the rankings - didnt work. Stopped technical google bombing and started putting up posts in forums mentioning my id - still blog in top. So what? Change my userid? WONT.

So, after hearing some great suggestions ( one - i am supposed to include 'certain' stuff in my blog so that google stops putting up this blog in the search results ), I decided it was easier to start typing again.

So here I am. I have just come back after a half-way-through-interview, but later abt that.

Tamil albums

2007-06-29T21:47:00.000+05:30

Just look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHG6FJTcJR8

2007-02-11T17:18:00.002+05:30

went to NSS trip yesterday.enjoyed it. didnt do anything there - clapped whens someone left the stage and bossed over I years.
Cant find anything to do today

Its Abacus

2007-02-02T07:52:00.003+05:30

think i should go to coll now? its abacus.Nah

Particpation? im not allowed
Volunteering? theres many already. anyway, im too lazy - havent volunteered for anything since i was 6
Lot of friends coming - sure, whole of velammal coll's going to be there: heck, Anand is mature enough to find his way to ceg, and i could always scrap him in orkut

so , today's HOLIDAY

2007-02-01T21:05:00.000+05:30

Me? blogging? What am i thinking of?

anyway, its just a blog :;