GSOC Idiosyncracies

Well the last week is not looking the best for me. Over the past few days I heard some weird bad news that made me feel a bit apprehensive about the whole idea of Google Summer of Code. I am not writing a crib post because it does not look likely that my proposals will make it through but what amazes me is the manner which defines the ousting.

I applied for a proposal for GNUnet under the GNU project. Although I am not supposed to know but everyone ultimately gets some feedback from the mentors. Accordingly, I found out that I was consistently between 1st and 3rd rank. The whole scenario changed on 14th April, when my mentor who had taken ownership for my proposal told me that there is one more application for GNUnet and that the other person was a complete newbie so had got higher weightage. True, I had been working for GNUnet over the past 2 months but how does that make me ineligible? I got the answer saying that I would contribute to the project anyways and the other person would not. So the mentors downgraded my proposal to 12th rank. He could have kept it at 9 since GNU looked like getting 8 slots but now with an extension of 2 slots too, I am basically out. He killed my chances instead of diminishing them. With due respect, he told me tried his best to get my proposal for a second slot as 8 GNU subprojects are selected and 2 look like getting a second slot. Apparently, he is now pissed off that the slots are likely going to wget and grub because of the merit of the project( read as the popularity of projects) and some other finer nuances which are not nice to list rather than on the merit of the proposal, but even then how does that matter. I know GSoc is about getting new contributors but is it for people who are looking for some quick money and then running off. I can see huge vacant chinks in the Gsoc armoury. Another observation I made is that some mentors are overenthusiastic to see their mentees make it while some are detached. Looks like a huge slice of luck is also involved in this case.

I had another brush of problems for my proposal under Debian too. I proposed a project under Lintian for Debian for which I have been doing some patch work for some time. It seemed that my Debian proposal was not getting ranked sufficiently as it did not seem interesting to mentors. Also I was told, I might have lesser chances for the same shitty reason that I was already working on it and it would be nice to get some nice new people in. There also seemed a problem that potentially attractive proposals were getting ranked by mentors. Somehow the whole experience has left a bad taste.

I know some people might think I am shouting out here, but at the same time I am thankful to a lot of people who ranked and gave me great reviews on my proposals. In the end some stupidity and weird reasoning looks like standing like a block. If this is a beacon for the future people might stop contributing in the future to particular project in the hope that they might make it to GSoc.

GLUG-NITH serves up OpenOffice

Well now the GLUG-NITH server aka Razorblade serves up Openoffice mirror for /stable and /developer here. Will post more details later. I have been bogged down by some not so niceties of Google Summer of Code 2008 procedures.

Recent Ubuntu Initiatives……. Excellent Management Work

The Ubuntu community has been always been very pro-active as a community and their recent activities are really pointers to an excellent management. What started as an innovative bug quashing program in the way of 5-A-Day has escalated into a competition. With stats being provided who is providing how many fixes, it seems to be an excellent idea to do QA and bug fixes on a priority level. For the stats see here. They have also come up with a modified version of Dell’s original plans of Ideastorm and have launched their own Brainstorm. This is a sure shot way of getting new ideas for the project and opening up the development ideas out of the hands of developers only. Looks like they are making their circle really well

GLUG-NITH serves up a TLDP mirror

In addition to the Fedora and GNU mirrors that is being served by GLUG-NITH, on demand of the University users, a TLDP mirror has also been set up here. After a couple of mails the TLDP mirror admins have added us to the mirrorlist, so that everyone around knows about the mirror and can use it well. Here goes a lot of thanks to the College authorities and kudos to the GLUG-NITH community.

Saraswati Puja revisited

What a hectic 3 days it has been…. Serving a huge food mountain to 1500 hungry people was a tedious task. People just looking for any chance to jump on the food tray while you trying to save it. 5200 rasmalai’s vanished into thin air and so did 8000 puris. My God!!! For the first time in my life I realised how hard a task Mother Nature is facing trying to feed so many hungry people.

Today we went to Sujanpur, a 3 hr. drive from my College to immerse the deity in River Beas. Before we went I did the short puja and aarti as the pandit had not come. My mother would have gone mad seeing me do it. Using the ghanti along with the incense sticks and the aarti was a difficult job and often my process concurrency was broken. We had fun in the bus shouting chants of Jai Saraswati Mata. It is an altogether different matter that the chants got louder while crossing the members of the opposite sex. On reaching the ghat 5 of us took the idol into the water. Believe me, it was tough job. With uneven rocks on the floor and the strong current of the mountain river and the algae, a wrong step meant certain death. 5 more people were holding the 5 people who were holding the idol so that those 5 did not do their immersion. It was fun. On the way back, we had laddoos, samosas and apples. Hemant has made a nice collage of the Puja. The 3 days have gone by and its a bit saddening I will not be part of any more Saraswati Puja celebrations in my college, being in the final year. This is one memory to cherish for a lifetime. I have 125 unread mails in my inbox. That is another pain …………..

Saraswati Puja

It might sound a bit late but then owing to the mid semester exams on 11th February, we had to do it today. Organising Puja for 1500 odd people in an University is a tough task specially when you have 30 organisers and a fruit mountain to distribute. The idol we got from Kolkata was too divine. Over 5 and a half feet it was worth the pain to carry it across 1500 kms. I spent a sleepless night yesterday making the pandal. It was fun playing with hay,sticks,mud. I realised how much fun it is being an Architect and a Civil Engineer especially to see your creation stand tall in front of you.

I have just returned to my room which I left yesterday evening. Preparations are on for tomorrow’s feast, Puri, Sabzi, Rasmalai, Gajar ka halwa. Yum heavenly but then alas the hard work that will go into serving the 1500 people is a bit of a damper. I can hardly keep awake now. Am off to sleep. Got to check my mails before that.

$a.out $success

So finally we got to host a re-run of a.out this time after much delay. All the delay was caused a great deal owing to the unavailability of the participants. It was a bit hectic designing the questions but then things came out cool when it was being moulded into a storyline. The Bourne series rocks and so did the questions.

20 teams made it to the finals and we organised it in the Comp science department lab on 15 systems running RHEL 4 and a 5 Windows system on which we installed OpenSSH. All the participants logged onto the server and had a nice time hacking on the machine christened C Labs. The competition level was mindblowing. The total marks for 4 questions was 900 and 2 teams tied at 580 with the 3rd team at 300 and 4 teams at 150 and 2 at 70. In order to resort the tie I had to run valgrind suite and time commands for memory and time complexity of their programs. It was unfair but then something needed to be done.

Director Sir is out of stations so we need his signatures on certificates. Once that is done we will hold the prize giving ceremony. Participation certificates for the 20 teams and winner certificates for the winners(that sounds stupid as its obvious).Money will also be handed out. 1500,1000,500 for the 1st,2nd and 3rd prizes respectively. I am going to take these guys for a trip for a party else they will not get any money. First prize goes to Agam and Khushboo(Final years), 2nd prize to Ramakant and Sarvendra(3rd years) and  3rd prize to Sandesh and Gaurav(3rd years). 2 first year guys Arnab and his partner(if the partner dude reads this post I am sorry I dont remember your name. Do tell me your name) did a fantastic job as well. Well done.
Congrats to all. I got to rush now else I won’t get dog food in Manimahesh mess.

The Art Of Orkutting——————- Part 1

Eating,drinking,sleeping,fighting,fuc*ing er reproducing have always been the primary activities of man (feminists please read it as a neuter gender) that he need not be taught. An activity which is running as a front-runner for exclusion in this list is

Orkutting

Is it related to Orkut? Those of you who do not know what the hell is Orkut better go to this link and in a week you will be seen patrolling whatever computing facilities you can lay your hand on to have a peek on a blue screen with weird people laughing at you(who are being forced to laugh) with 2 magical bars to enter your id and password. You key them in and haloa you are in your world.

For those who know about Orkut let’s move on

 

The basic overview of the Art

 

1. History :

In this section we will be tracing the rise and the culture that built up on Orkutting. How the whole concept of Orkutting arose and the various phases it has gone through which include:

i . Having 0 fans

ii. Having 50 fans

iii. Having 20000 scraps

iv. Joining more communities than the friends you have and there is a growth competition between the 2 rates.

v. Starting with a fresh account.

 

We will discuss it later.

 

2. Economic implications

Money pays and we will discuss the whole scenario monetarily. How does even a class 12 student save money for Orkutting, how online gifting occurs from boys to girls, how well blue-films make money and how does small things like your friend doesn’t pay for your “Single” at Tilak boil down to Orkutting?

 

3 . Social Impacts

Ever wondered how it will be if a common “Mess Chachu” becomes a “Michael Jackson”. we will take test cases and evaluate, all on the basis of Orkutting, how Orkutting can help you in English speaking, how it can help you in typing, how it will thus ensure better jobs based on your personal skills, how it will get you laid?

 

4 . Miscellaneous Impacts

Things to be discusses that I cannot think of right now. So watch out for the upcoming release of the talk which will be soon available to you only at http://bonii.wordpress.com/

 

 

Mayhem Unfurled

“Alcohol reduces your brain activity”

 

I got a first hand experience of the adage a few days back………..

 

Me, Shishir and Rohit had gone to HHH bar for a few drinks on the weekend. Over there I saw Arjun getting drunk on just a shot…… This guy goes high by just smelling alcohol.

 

Out there we drank till the bar closed down. How much I drank I will not specify lest I get classified as a novice or an expert drunkard.

 

At 12:30 at night,we were making our way back. At the gates the security asked us to stop and enter our names in the security register. I entered mine as C.V. Raman, Rohit was Ramanujan and Shishir was Albert Einstein, so much so for the hallowed security.

 

On the way back I could feel myself a lot light and was walking on thin air. Shishir had caught hold of junior and was giving him advices about the worldly ways. People always give advices and become caring about the world when they get drunk. I guess drinks should come with the tag-line,

 

“We care about the world”.

 

The junior was clearly having a bad time or one whale of a time.

 

Phase 1

 

In front of PGH or the girls hostel in our college I called up my girlfriend[let's call Miss X for the purpose of privacy ] and told her to come to the balcony of her room which faces the road though a bit far off. I stood under a lamp-post and started blowing kisses at Miss X. Now how does the lamp-post come in. Well I did it so that she could see me in the dark. What did not hit me at that time was that I was visible to the teachers residence right opposite the hostel. At that time Laws of light were that only Miss X could see me. Well Miss X got afraid and told me to move from there. I only budged from there when I got Miss X to come to the portico at the other end of the hostel which is just opposite to the road.

 

Phase 2

 

When she was out at the portico Rohit had a sudden urge to talk to his girlfriend, I told Miss X to go wake her up. Miss X was reluctant but then sentimental blackmail forced her on her way. So when she was back I was shouting at Miss X at one corner and Rohit at the other end. Don’t get me wrong. I was shouting because I felt I was speaking softly but actually according to decibel levels the whole hostel could hear me. I did not know how long I talked or what I talked. But soon I could see the watchman coming towards us. I caught Rohit’s shoulder and we walked away like the 2 most decent souls in this world.

 

Phase 3

 

The next day morning I had to make 5 phone calls to Miss X just with explanations how I got drunk and why. Then the bombshells landed about what I had said. The sumarised words are as follows:

 

Excerpt 1:

 

“Your friend Miss Y had danced very well at Hillffair(the fest in our college) at the Hamirpur grounds but the basta** Hamirpur people were so much I could not watch properly.” I also told her to call Miss Y whom I wanted to congratulate right then.

 

Dircrepancies:

 

1. Hillffair is not held in Hamirpur grounds but in the College ground.

 

2. Hamirpur folks do not come to watch it.

 

3. If I could not watch properly how do I know.

 

4.Miss Y was sleeping and it was 1:30 at night.

 

5. I had never talked to Miss Y in my life before

 

Excerpt 2:

 

I was blowing Miss X kisses non stop for 5 minutes and told her “She was looking beautiful and I will break the wall, jump from the road and come to the balcony”

 

Discrepancies:

 

1. She was standing in the dark and I could not actually see her, that part of memory is dark.

 

2. I cannot break a wall.

 

3. The balcony and the road are at a distance of 15 metres and is separated by a fall of 2 storeys.

 

4. I am not Tarzan.

 

5. I did not have a watch.

 

Excerpt 3:

 

Miss X told me “The watchman might come”. I replied valiantly and said “The watchman’s ******* I will bash him up”

Discrepancies:

 

1. I was seeing multiple images so that meant my hands would fly all around.

 

2. The watchman had sticks and had accomplices.

 

3. I want to finish my degree.

 

Well the other excerpts are cut out as per Miss X’s edit instructions. There is one great thing about getting drunk and talking to your girlfriend. You do not have to try to speak from your heart, you actually do speak from your heart. All the things that accumulate in your heart do come out. It’s one whale of a time and worth having. It’s about living life without inhibitions.

 

Knock knock, I am not drunk right now. So let’s cut the crap. I came back to the hostel played imaginary football prevented Rohit from going to take a cold water bath at 2 o cloak at night and went to sleep.

 

It was mayhem and the next day hangover and explanation sessions to Miss X were even worse

 

Ciaooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Is it evening or morning !!!!!!!!!!!

The title sounds drunk right??

Believe me I am not writing this after downing a few nice glasses of beers.

 

Have you ever stayed up at night completely and then next day you have no clue regarding where you are? or who you are ? and what you are supposed to do. Everything just goes into the auto-mode. You just somehow end up walking around without actually really doing anything about it or thinking a lot about it. Those of you who have experienced this before would gleefully empathize with my situation (which is something I do not really appreciate) and those who haven’t been through it, I would elaborate it a bit more for you all to savour.

 

The day began as beautifully and normally as any other day. I woke up at 12 o clock in the morning ( I guess ) and began the day as an ungrateful person without really thanking God for the most beautiful thing in this world, “Sleep”. I can vouch for it now come what may.

Then it was the usual pre-lunch surfing of reading and writing tedious mails with a lot of intermittent orkut profile visits and then when I was too tired of this chore it was time to eat. The food sucked that day but the omlette rocked. I dont know how I would have subsited on the HBCSE had it not been for Naveen and omlettes. Then post lunch it was guffaw time with mommy aka Divya, bhai aka Shishir and stupid aka Khushboo. What does guffaw here signify? Exactly to tell the truth its something I don’t know but somehow all of us found some weird stuff to talk and laugh about. In case I missed it let me tell you we were meanwhile working on the POSTGRES API’s as well

After tea and some vatata vadas came the real challenge, setting the API’s right so that they worked and then integrating them in the harvesting scripts. The whole evening just went by into it and also interacting in livid ways with Mr. Mane. For refreshments we just played bzflag and had a whale of a time trying to smash each other’s tanks into oblivion. Then came the dinner and then suddenly I had a desire of staying awake the whole night. Somehow I thought lets make sure that the harvesting gets underway tonight. Enough had been enough. So post dinner the work started of incorporating the API’s and somehow mysteriously all of them started giving some niggling errors here and there. Its a pain to correct errors because you have missed a ‘;’ or gave a wrong indent in Python in a huge code but then what needs to be done has to be done.

Before we knew it was 2 o clock at night and to overcome drowsiness we went to the hostel to catch up up on some tea and coffee from the vending machine. At 3 o’ clock in the night Khushboo got a scolding-call(if such a thing exists) from her dad and had to push off to the hostel to sleep. Meanwhile Shishir had already gone to the hostel as he was down with viral fever. Our dev team was badly hit but then me and Divya had to lead the charge. Amidst protests from her parents Divya stayed on. I was silently thankful as alone I would have gone mad debugging though I didn’t mention it to her and pretended indifference. The night wore on and we were silently trying to tame 2 beasts at the same time MySQL ans PostgreSQL. From Wikipedia dumps in MySQL we were harvesting gnowledge(read as Free Knowledge) into postgreSQL GNOWSYS tables. Intially we hit upon a decoding problem with UTF-8 and Ascii.

The IRC channels added to our humour where we had turned for help as someone suggested us to go through the MySQL and PostgreSQL codes in 18 months to sort the problem. Instead of adding to our indignation we went on laughing. Soon the problem sorted out thanx to the Python Cookbook and harvesting started. Yes!!!!! The summit was ours, the battle was won .The watched clocked 6:30 am and we were feeling a strange drunk feeling. We decided to take a walk.

Oh yes! I forgot at 4 o’ clock I got a call from Khushboo that a mouse had entered her room. Since Divya is also paranoid about mice whe said she will go to the room but won’t take part in the “Chuha!! Room Chhoro abhiyaan”. Once inside their room both Divya and Khushboo stood up on their beds and I got myself packed up with ammo(read an old black umbrella) and then went into the corner and got the mice away. Then I taped up their windows and came back to the lab. The night seemed full of promises.

Yes. About the walk me and Divya we were both walking as if in a trance. I couldn’t feel my legs hitting the floor. I was flying and seemed to be walking in thin air. Somehow the world seemed too simple and funny to me and Divya and we couldn’t stop laughing. We were going nuts laughing. We went to the hostel and watched TV and then came back to have the earliest breakfast. We came to the lab and our program was silently and sturdily churning data. The harvest had started. Our eyes heart, backs fired and we went to surfing and waiting for Khushboo and bhai to turn up so that we could go. Bipin turned up and narrated how Debarshi was in a similar plight last time. Then when bhai and Khushboo came we had an early lunch at 1 and pushed off. I went into my room fell on my bed and was asleep before you could say “Sleep”. I woke up with a start at 5 o’ clock in the evening and had a bath and then went to the lab again. In that time Khushboo and bhai had harvested a lot of data and the GNOWSYS metadatabase had swelled to 300 MB. I was damn happy but showed as if I wasn’t impressed .They didn’t bother and I guess they knew how I actually felt and what I was showing.

I felt like I hadn’t slept for years. Every inch of my body hurt but my mind was at peace since our Summer Project was successful and GNOWSYS was being updated after six months. After a drowsy evening peppered  with scoldings from Khushboo I came back to the hostel at 10 o clock at night and went to sleep

What a night out it had been!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It had been memorable but we got the job done and that what mattere. The work had been tiring but then that’s a devs life .Another dev who has completed his Google Summer of Code the RUM project was also online at 4 o’ clock working away and we chatted on IRC for sometime. The channel #glug-nith feels like a second home. That had been the sojourn and to tell you the truth the lack of sleep had truly been worth it every inch.