the BITS network is an #epicfail

I always wondered why my blog takes such an extraordinarily long time to load here from the BITS campus. I did a lot of tweaking to streamline my page, including getting rid of heavy widgets, using a blogger template and not a third party one. To no avail.

Till one day one of my GoodOldFriends told me that the highly retarded people in the BITS Information Processing Center (better known as IPC) reduce your bandwidth when particular strings appear in an URL. For example iso or avi or mpg. Why? Because they believe that with something as efficient a p2p contraption as DC++ operating within campus, we students would hog the institute bandwidth in an attempt to download huge movies and sitcoms and other video files.

Not that we wouldn’t, but that is besides the point.

So you search for ‘isometric’ on Google and fifteen minutes later, you will still be staring at a white screen and cursing the network. Because a wretched ‘iso’ appears in the URL, and because a bunch of diabolical guys are of the opinion that you are actually trying to download the 2 GB+ iso files of FIFA 11 or Call of Duty.

On the other hand, try searching ‘isametric’ and .. presto … flash gordon on steroids!

Bleh!

The levels of brainless bureaucracy the IPC reaches, astonishes me at times. Right from blocking words like ‘sex’ in URLs (I can gauge the irritation of the Bio student who needs to do a project on sex chromosomes) to ‘movies’ (which can be easily eluded by searching for ‘movis’ instead, Google does the rest), to having such weird selective bandwidth restrictions.

So following the thought-route opened up by my GoodOldFriend whom you might remember from the second paragraph, I started fragmenting my blog URL in an attempt to find the trouble causing string within it.

I started Googling the following strings :

‘wr’ – nothing wrong

‘wra’ – nothing wrong again.

‘wram’ – BEEP BEEP. WhiteScreenOfIrritation.

chopped off the ‘w’ from the front.

‘ram’ – BEEP BEEP. WhiteScreenOfIrritation. #fail

chopped off the ‘r’

‘am’ – nothing wrong yet again.

Needlessly, I chopped off the ‘a’

‘m’ – no problems (as expected)

So there it was. The culprit string. ‘ram’.

RAM! Of all things? What do they think? Some religious move to prevent devotees of Lord Ram(a) from Googling their benefactor and protector?

My GoodOldFriend clarifies on GTalk that .ram is apparently an extension of Real Audio files.

Aha. So that’s it.

But in the end, all I can say is this is just one helluvan #epicfail to boot.

PS : ramayana when googled blazes in like Usain Bolt on a diet. Which isn’t saying much, but still. I wonder why. Or how.

Till then.

No leaf Clover

Have you ever gone through those phases of your life, when a certain thing had kept haunting you? Kept getting back to you? It could have been anything – a memory, a loved one, an incident, a scene from a movie … or something as arbit as a game of chess you had won, a shirt that you had worn or even a sumptuous dessert that you had tasted.

From a personal perspective, I have. Many a time. Though what I relate now is something that has been stuck in one corner of my mind for as long as three-and-a-half-months. It laid there for all this while, gathering dust and neglect, till I thought I had to dig it up. Express it, rather than let theGreatHealer shroud it in layers of forgetfulness.

It’s a song. More specifically, a particular lyric of a song. And the song goes by the name No Leaf Clover. And just in case you haven’t head the song, it’s a song from the live S&M album of none other than Metallica.

Contrary to the reactions expressed by those of you, who snickered in disgust at the name Metallica, instantly associating it to a loud, noisy, headache-inducing group of profane people, who yell in front of microphones, and jump around on stage … well, honestly speaking, I have nothing to say. The only thing I can hazard is saying that the next time, try to look at the thing differently. Or follow the lyrics of the song you are listening to. Maybe you’ll like it that way.

But to those of you who are into metal music, who can understand the beauty behind all that “noise and loud sound”, to them, I really don’t need to say anything. 

Coming back to No Leaf Clover.

the lyrics and my interpretation follow :

And it feels right this time
On his crash course with the big time
Pay no mind to the distant thunder
New Day fills his head with wonder, boy

Says it feels right this time
Turned it ’round and found the right line
“Good day to be alive, sir
Good day to be alive,” he says

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way

Don’t it feels right like this
All the pieces fall to his wish
“Suck up for that quick reward, boy
Suck up for that quick reward,” they say

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
It’s coming your way
It’s coming your way oh yeah!
Here it comes

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way

the song begins with positive vibes. Of how things seem to be falling in place. The rejection of the ominous elements (pay no mind to the distant thunder), and the start of a new day, a new hope signify a near plethora of good things about to happen. It is apparently a “good day to be alive” …

The next stanza brings all the positivity crashing down. How things which had seemed to be falling in place … suddenly get all hay-wire and messed up. There’s trouble brewing up. And the ominous agents are on the rise.

The analogy drawn is not only very appropriate, but also very thoughtful. How a person who is trapped in a dark dreary tunnel, welcomes the soothing light at the end of tunnel, assuming it to be the end of the darkness, but is overcome with sudden fear when he realises that it is actually the light from a freight train heading his way.

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way …

The next stanza again raises the hope, and makes references to times of war. “Suck up for that quick reward boy.” “Suck up for that quick reward” they say …  how a newly recruit soldier, who is all enthused about joining the army is shown the real deal in the battle front. His senior officers (“they”) ask him “Don’t it feels right likes this?” The young gun loves it … the battle field is all that he had dreamed of all his life … and “All the pieces fall to his wish” … but then again

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way …

By far, this is the most crucial line in the lyrics, and the one about which the song revolves.

The sudden fall in luck; the suddenly overwhelming helplessness; the sudden rise of negativity; the sudden turning of tides. All this and more.

PS : A four leaf clover is a symbol of good luck, and a harbinger of good times. A NO leaf clover is therefore, quite the reverse.

brb

the zero

“… and what happens when we take a number out from itself”, asked the primeval Ghot.
“Nothing remains … at all”, the primeval master answered.
“So how do we show that there is nothing left in that?” the primeval Ghot continued.

The primeval Master closed his eyes and contemplated for a while. After he was done pondering over this question … an answer to which would change the course of human history, he opened his eyes again, picked up a piece of charcoal and  scribbled something on the parchment, that lay on the ground. Having done this, he stared at his handiwork in amazement and wonder.

The primeval Ghot peered into the parchment expecting to see something out-of-the-ordinary scribbled in that, and was quite disappointed when he saw that it was nothing more than a circle.

“That’s it?” he asked incredulously, “a tiny circle?”

The primeval Master smiled back.

— passage of time —

Little did the primeval Ghot and his Master know that by this feat, they had actually changed the way societies would evolve thousands of years down the line. Little did they know that they had by this act, shaped the way cultures would function, the sciences would develop and the world would become what it is today.

The little circle which came to being as a result of a simple question posed by the primeval Ghot, is today better known as the zero. Or, if you are BITSian, a zuc.

So why the sudden fascination for this seemingly well-known everyday little object, a fascination that has even compelled me to dedicate an entire blog post to it?

Why indeed? I wonder.

What does the zero denote?

Several things. For one, it is the answer most unsuspecting IITJEE aspirants tick in an OMR sheet, hoping that to be the correct option and then wonder what went wrong. For another, it’s the thing that comes back on your answer sheet, in red ink when you submit a blank one. For yet another, it is the thing which when added at the end of your paycheck, increases your worries ten-fold.

To the chemist, the concept of Absolute Zero, the theoretical temperature at which all thermodynamic activity ceases, is of profound interest. To the physicist it is the hearing threshold in decibels, amongst other things which projects zero into its numero-uno status. To the computer science student it is the quintessential role zero plays in binary mathematics and Boolean algebra that makes it so very essential. And to the historian, the year zero is the fulcrum about which the Gregorian calender is pivoted.

To the mathematician … lets not get into that.

So as you can see the zero is not only ubiquitous, but varied in it’s application in the real world.

What else does it denote?

Simply put, another of its applications lies in its usage as a symbol for nothingness, as a symbol for voids,  and emptiness. This application is possibly the biggest feather this beautiful number has in its cap, and the reason why it came to exist in the first place.

Which brings me to the thing I had in mind when I began writing this post.

Nothingness.

A queer thing it is. We know what it is, yet we don’t understand what it means.

We seem made out of it, yet we fail to embrace it. 

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust

We know that that’s what is in store for us, yet we don’t want it.

If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it; let us fight against destiny, even though without hope of victory. 

It is that which is present everywhere, yet we fail to perceive it.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

One only needs to look at it the right way.

— pondering —

 Why the hell did I write all this? Forgive me if I’ve wasted your time all this while. I guess it’s the post-Oasis hangover. Need to get some sleep.

PS : my backy shouts and tells me that SENSEX has gone down by 65 points. That’s bad.

On a parting note, here’s some food-for-thought.

cheers 🙂