tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-144042462024-03-13T10:57:32.817+05:30The Unmetalled HighwayThe random and irregular ravings and rantings of a self proclaimed psycho. Please do not pay much attention to these. Even I don't.Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-69699387649833325012013-01-10T20:18:00.000+05:302013-01-10T20:20:08.283+05:30coming back to life...<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Not only is the title of this post an excellent Floyd song, it is too apt a phrase to pass when starting some much-missed activity after a long long while.....<br /><br />
And thus, it is with great pleasure that I announce my grand return to one of the grandest cultures on the planet - motorbiking!<br /><br />
Well, maybe not as grand as I wished it to be. I have gained barely two and a half cubic inches of engine displacement as compared to my past ride, but I have also gained maybe seven years' worth of technical advances so I am not complaining too much! A wholehearted adherence to the <i><b>"no replacement for displacement"</b></i> dictum can wait a while...<br /><br />
So here I am, now the proud owner of the latest avatar of a motorbike with an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y10OJ1pNW3o">advertising campaign that implores me to forgive everyone so that I eventually feel like god</a>, and in the first few hours on the saddle of this iron horse, I feel that the campaign might be quite right on the money (till I give in to the aforementioned dictum).
</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-62104910013247708072012-10-01T21:48:00.003+05:302012-10-01T21:48:54.392+05:30Will we ever get back there...<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Back in the day when I used to pull some seriously crazy hours at the office, friends of mine used to warn me about burning out. I used to joke that the only burnouts that I knew about involved internal combustion engines with a ton of torque and a heavy foot on the gas pedal. The warning however did linger on in the back of my head.<br />
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As time passed on, I managed to align my hours to something that is more akin to a better work-life balance (keep in mind though, that just the hours were aligned...), and when work really demanded, I was still able to pull off that long day or two. I however did look back (and still do) with some wonder at those continuous stream of twelve ~ fourteen hour days that was normal for me to kick back without breaking a sweat. How I had managed to do that without actually burning out remained somewhat of a mystery until recently.<br />
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The breakthrough came to me when I read an article linked to by a friend. While the article, written by an MIT grad mainly dealt with other issues, the key take-away line for me was the following:<br />
<i><b>"What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work."</b></i><br /><br />
At once it became abundantly clear to me that I was so much more motivated back then (maybe even for the wrong reasons) than I am now, and that is what allowed me to stretch so close to the breaking point, maybe even beyond, and still survive.<br />
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It's not that I am not motivated about my work at all these days, or that I don't like what I do at all. And as far as I can tell, I have not burned out; not yet, at-least. What I didn't like was how easy it was for me to drop a few rungs on the motivation ladder.<br />
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The final nail in the coffin came in the form of another article, or rather a series of articles about the lives and times of engineers working on the first Apple Macintosh computer. While most of the articles were written by one particular engineer, and dealt with the technical intricacies of the pioneering work that they were doing in the field of GUI for the people, something was very clear. All the engineers on that team had a motivation level that I can barely even dream about. Even my peak couldn't hold a candle to what these guys achieved. Nothing deterred them from working on and on and on towards their goal, the completion and launch of their product. Neither weekends, nor long deserved holidays. Neither technical limitations and stumbles along the way, nor demands by their project leader. Neither bad managers, nor awful reviews. Maybe it was the rush of being pioneers in their field, or maybe they just believed so much in the work they were doing, they just couldn't be brought down!<br />
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What I am left with is a sense of emptiness, of not feeling that level of a connect with my work that can push me to do crazy stuff again. And I guess its not just me. From what I gather, such a thing is happening with a lot of people. All I can do is ask, "Will we ever get back there?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The article written by the MIT grad can be read on the MIT publication, The Tech, <a href="http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html">here</a>.<br /><br />The series of articles about the original Apple Macintosh can be read at <a href="http://www.folklore.org/index.py">Folklore</a></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-74640891994320480362012-03-05T19:52:00.000+05:302012-03-05T19:52:58.836+05:30The eloquence of spontaneity<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And yet again, it has been more than a year since I last paid any attention to these pages.<br />
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On one hand, all this time has passed in what has seemed to just be the blink of an eye. On the other, as soon as I even begin to skim the depths of grey matter inside my head, the constant stream of events and experiences that have transformed me essentially a full circle into the same state that I was in when I last wrote here come to the fore. This full circle, however, is not the topic at hand today.<br />
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In that constant stream of experiences of the fourteen months past, there have been many worthy of more than a significant mention here. But blog-posts have been none. Nada. Zilch. Is it because I am extremely lazy? Partially! But much more than that, it is because I am not the kind to bust out spontaneous eloquent posts.<br />
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When I had first started this blog, I was this twenty-one year old, immature geeky kid, who upon discovering a bandwagon that seemed to be tailor-made for his kind, jumped upon it with more zest than Don Quixote charging his windmills! Back in those days, and for a fair length of time since, I wrote about anything and everything.<br />
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But over the almost seven years that have elapsed since I first started, I think something has changed. Not much of me (I am still that immature, geeky kid, and have discovered a few more tailor-made bandwagons), but certainly what I wanted from this blog. I just didn't want it to be another place where I ranted on and on and on about some minor things. All around the interwebs, I saw these exquisitely eloquent pieces of writing, and wished to incorporate that in this place, just as a solemn attempt to improve, or at the very least, maintain the level of grasp on the language that I have been using as my primary one for a while now.<br />
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Now, as stated above, I am no creative genius capable of spontaneous eloquence, which my own self had demanded as a requisite for posts and as a result, this blog started to suffer. So much so that the only post in almost three years is a desperate rant penned in despair.<br />
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But I guess it is now high time to make a few changes. If I cannot be spontaneously eloquent, I can at-least try out the eloquence of spontaneity, and thereby, keep these pages alive with posts that matter, even if they are not of the literary standards that I had hoped to be able to achieve.<br />
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And in the process, maybe, just maybe, change myself for the better as well!</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-82848167757928788802010-12-31T21:15:00.005+05:302010-12-31T21:55:19.925+05:30The answer isn't 42<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Those who believe that the earth is "mostly harmless" may be quite offended by the title of this blog post. However, even they will agree, that 42 isn't the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Funny thing is, most don't even know what the ultimate question of life is.<br /><br />Inevitably though, it crosses everyone's mind. Or rather, for the lack of a better description, engulfs the mind with an intensity that would make a raging wildfire green with jealousy. It, of-course being the question that shakes the very essence of existence of even the strongest people out there.<br /><br />In the words of the inimitable Dr. Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D., the question can be phrased as "To what end?". Upon most of us though, as we tread wearily through the brobdingnagian monotony that is life, it slowly dawns as a realisation that we don't really know what we want from it.<br /><br />Given that this question, at least for a lucky few amongst us, results in the forging of a path that they follow for the rest of their natural born life, we may safely assume that this, in fact, is the the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.<br /><br />For most of us though, this realisation transcends the feeling of falling down an endless pit, with the damn thing not even possessing the common courtesy of having a bottom (Remember, its not the fall that kills you, its the sudden stop at the bottom that does!). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the feeling of not knowing the answer makes one suicidal, its just that the metaphorical bottom to that pit might be a jolt enough to make one sit up, take stock of life, think, ponder, contemplate. In other words, the metaphorical bottom is the epiphany all of us are waiting to have.<br /><br />Sadly, so far, any epiphany to the purpose of life has eluded me with the same gusto as the Road Runner evading Wile E Coyote.<br /><br />Why then all of a sudden, in the dying hours of the year, am I rambling about my (so far) wasted life. I guess it is because despite trying to, I cannot answer the question "What do you do?" with "I'm living my dream", which undoubtedly is the best response that could ever be garnered for this question. Or maybe it is just because despite enough attempts to do otherwise, I am going to spend the new year's eve in the exact same manner I did last year; Asleep before the new year dawns (per IST). <br /><br />Whatever the reason be, 2011 does not seem to be bringing any breakthroughs. So if any of you out there, who chance upon this rant, have but even a sliver of insight into how to figure out what I want, lemee know.<br /><br />PS: The crux of the matter however is that even after going through whatever trials and trepidations that lie in the path of getting to know what I want, what I really want, or rather, what I need may be something else entirely. But that perhaps is a topic for another day.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-66970581056424080272009-05-23T07:12:00.002+05:302009-05-23T08:05:57.711+05:30Custom Message v3.0<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">It has been a really really long time since I <a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2006/09/custom-message-v20.html">last posted here my compilation of status messages</a> that I find below friends' names in the various messengers that I use. More than two and a half years actually (damn, that <strong>IS</strong> long). Since then, countless status messages have been displayed in my messenger friend lists, and some that catch my eye are saved to a raggedy text file somewhere in the depths of my hard disk. But it is now time.<br /><br />I'll start with something which, while having flashed across my gtalk window ages ago, sorta perfect fits the current situation that the world is in.<br /><strong><i>"Due to recent cutbacks and until further notice, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off."</i></strong> This one was from Jay Mody/Drumster.<br /><br />Related to the same subject is the next one from <a href="http://fundoome.blogspot.com/">fundoome</a>:<br /><strong><i>"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."</i></strong><br /><br />Given that the state of the world is not so good, few people do have their doubts about the future. And thus Babboo said:<br /><strong><i>"The problem with future is that though it is supposed to be better it keeps turning into present."</i></strong><br /><br />And on similar lines, Cyrix says:<br /><strong><i>"A man once told me, "Cheer up, things cud b worse." So I cheered up, and sure enuf, things got worse."</i></strong><br /><br />Hmmm, given that the above few post a very depressing picture of the world, lets move on to slightly lighter stuff....<br /><br />Lets start with another one from Cyrix:<br /><strong><i>"I hated going to weddings. All the grandmas would poke me saying "You're next". They stopped that when I started doing it to them at funerals."</i></strong><br /><br />This post wouldn't be complete without the trademark geeky status message, so here it is, courtesy Anikh Thakur:<br /><strong><i>"I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code."</i></strong><br /><br />Last time around, there were a few engineers pissed at Newton and gravitation. We have one more. This one's from Indranil, a fellow engineer and IITian.<br /><strong><i>"sometimes as an engineer i wish that Newton had decided to sit under a coconut tree ;)"</i></strong><br /><br />Talking of IITs, they are magical places, and as usual, the examination time brings out some of the finest status messages to come out of there. The following two deal with the dilemma that the students face towards the end of their stints at IIT.<br /><strong><i>"xam time realisation : gettin into iit is tough but getting out is tougher :(("</i></strong> - Indranil<br /><strong><i>"You think getting into IIT is difficult? Try getting out, b***h......"</i></strong> - Rajeev<br /><br />Some of us believe in getting through these exams and all. Others however differ, as aptly put forward by Abhishek Gupta:<br /><strong><i>"padh likh kar kya karna hai, ek din sabko marna hai, markar bhi janam liye to nursery se hi to padhna hai!!"</i></strong><br /><br />Everyday, countless scientific discoveries are being made. The next statement is from Issac Asimov, but for all purposes, for me, it simply was <a href="http://malewar.blogspot.com/">Vivek Malewar/Matterlogic</a>'s status message.<br /><strong><i>"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, isn't 'Eureka!' but rather 'hmm....that's funny'."</i></strong><br /><br />And also, often what the scientists and physicists feel while working hard for these discoveries is also aptly put forward by another Matterlogic status message:<br /><strong><i>"I feel like i'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe!!!"</i></strong><br /><br />A lot many people like eagles for being the majestic creatures that they are. Little do they know that <strong><i>"Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines."</i></strong> I forgot whose status message this was.<br /><br />It is human nature to make jokes at the expense of our friends. The next one was the status message of Siva Krishna, making fun of Abhishek Chaudhary a.k.a Chow<br /><strong><i>Chow (verb.), Lacking hope. example: "After failing to impress women, Abhishek felt chowed"</i></strong><br /><br />Talking about friends, Anshul Singhal said:<br /><strong><i>"I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends going to both the places :)"</i></strong><br /><br />Of late, I have been interested in photography and camera equipment (okay, I'll admit, I have been obsessing about it for over a year now). The following two were not status messages but forum signatures picked up when hanging around the www.dpreview.com forums<br /><strong><i>"I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in f8"</i></strong> - Mr. Ken Phillips<br /><br />You gotta know a wee bit about photography to understand the one above, and you for the one below, you need to know about Nikon's DSLR lineup when the D700 was launched (Mid-2008-ish). This would also please the Chuck Norris fans amongst those who understand it.<br /><strong><i>"Chuck Norris round-house kicked Ken Rockwell's D3, and now we have the D700. Contrary to slanderous claims that the D3 slept with the D300 ~9 months ago!"</i></strong><br /><br />Last time around, after I posted the custom message post, I was requested to include a few of my own status messages. Unfortunately, I never remember mine after changing them on the messenger window. Things like twitter now help. This is what I came up during a recent week long spring break from office:<br /><strong><i>"an idle mind is truly the devil's workshop. But worse than that, it gives you way too much time to think over your own thoughts....."</i></strong><br /><br />Fortunately, Rishi Doshi (RiDo) has a solution:<br /><strong><i>"I like the music loud. So that I can't hear my thoughts."</i></strong><br /><br />In life, we are always in the pursuit of happyness, but sometimes, this is what you should have in mind when heading that way:<br /><strong><i>"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story....."</i></strong> - Siddarth Khastgir<br /><br />We also make a lot of mistakes in life, but I guess you'd never learn without making them.<br /><strong><i>"Here's the thing about mistakes. Sometimes, even when you know something's a mistake, you gotta make it anyway... Even really, really dumb mistakes."</i></strong> - Ted Mosby, Architect, from one of my fav. TV series, How I Met Your Mother.<br /><strong><i>"Everybody makes mistakes, that's why they put erasers on pencils"</i></strong> - I picked this one up from a blog post, don't remember whose.<br /><br />For making mistakes, we often criticize a lot of people. This should help you get a little more out of that process:<br /><strong><i>"Before you criticize people, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away. And you have their shoes."</i></strong> - saw this as Debjeet Sen's status message.<br /><br />Talking some more about mistakes, one of my friends has caught upon a mistake countless men make. Manuj Nagpal was enlightened with this knowledge:<br /><strong><i>"Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl."</i></strong><br /><br />If however you do make the mistake, the following are words of wisdom.<br /><strong><i>"Do u know why a gun is better than a wife? Because u can put a silencer on it."</i></strong> - TKB<br /><strong><i>"if ur wife wants to learn driving, u shudn't get in her way"</i></strong> - I forget whose status message this was.<br /><br />We dream a lot about what we want to do and what we want to be, but be very careful, as this quote from one of my favorite game warns:<br /><strong><i>"Dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking."</i></strong> - Max Payne<br /><br />We all know that English is a very very strange language, with the same word having many meanings, thus leading to funny sounding phrases, strange grammar rules, and on top of that more exceptions than rules. This leads to the following observations:<br /><strong><i>"More than 1 mouse is mice; more than 1 spouse is spice."</i></strong> - from <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/02691985661099575595">Bhavesh/Voice</a><br /><br /><strong><i>"A famous painter met his death because he could not draw his breath."</i></strong> - <a href="http://sonaliekka.blogspot.com/">Sonali/sonik</a><br /><br />There's another one from Sonik, about a cold truth of life.<br /><strong><i>"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he'll not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man."</i></strong><br /><br />And as long as we are back to discussing about life, I now present to you(and also close my post with) the status message that got me back into the game, and inspired me to dig out that text file and post the collection of status messages once more. I saw this as a status message a few days ago under Arijit Pal's name on my messenger window.<br /><strong><i>Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"</i></strong><br /><br /></span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-27445727069869166392009-03-22T21:20:00.001+05:302009-03-22T21:28:37.055+05:30The Laziest Person On the Planet<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">It's Official now (atleast as per the life and happenings research department of Psycho McCrazy). I am the Laziest person on the entire planet.<br /><br />I have been lazy almost my entire life, and if you ask, my parents and my aunts and uncles would vouch for that in a jiffy. I would always be totally unenthusiastic to do anything that did not interest me the least bit. Would more often that not get me into more trouble that I had bargained for, but that was my thing. It was what I did. I was lazy.<br /><br />As the time progressed, I slowly joined the rank of elite procrastinators, laying off all tasks till the latest possible minute, and had even without knowing that it even existed, started following the "<a href="http://jerrin-it.blogspot.com/2008/08/time-keepers.html">Theory of Round Figures</a>". While the exact definition of this theory is something that the original theorizer only can comprehend, it generally means that the most urgent task at hand can wait till the next hour, or the half hour strike before it has to be begun.<br /><br />But now, my laziness has gone to levels that the even I wasn't prepared to encounter. I mean earlier it was only the things that I disliked or did not interest me, but now even my hobbies and the things that I used to do when lazying off other real tasks have become victim of the unprecedented levels of laziness that I am displaying.<br /><br />I like photography, but for the last four or so months, I have not taken out my camera and gone out of the room. I was conveniently blaming it on the cold weather, but now that the last few days have been beautifully sunny without the crazy wind blowing, (except for today, damn rain), I still cannot make myself get off my arse and take a walk outside.<br /><br />I like to blog, and was pretty darn regular in college when I thought that my laziness was at its peak, with all the bunked classes, the endless hours of doing absolutely nothing, and not giving a damn about it. But now, even though there are a thousand things to choose from to write, I cannot make myself to sit in front of my monitor and type some. (Only I know how I have battled the monster of laziness to come up with this post).<br /><br />I also am an crazy avid videogamer, but now a days, sometimes I am so lazy that I prefer to stay lying in bed rather than getting up, walk three steps to my chair and play on for few hours. This when I used to laze around about zillions of other things just to play for some time longer.<br /><br />I mean for god's sake, have I become so pathetic, that my laziness is now getting to swallow up the things that I actually liked to do. Anyway, so far this laziness has not gotten to the point where it causes me some real damage, because as yet it has not caused me to miss work or something like that, but given the levels that it has gotten to, I'm not really sure about how long it will be before that happens. Damn, I gotta do something before it gets me!!!</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-67175749980157674862009-02-21T08:26:00.002+05:302009-02-21T09:22:55.513+05:30That Last Maggi!! Postcard from Japan v2.04<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There are both benefits and disadvantages to spending sometime in a foreign country like Japan, away from home. The advantages, while not limited to, include the five day work week, dust free environment, the infrastructures of an developed country, going to the <a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2008/11/tgs-2008-postcard-from-japan-v201.html">Tokyo Game Show</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/psychomccrazy/tags/tgs2008/">ogling at the booth babes</a>, and the good traffic sense that allows you to ride a bicycle and keep moderately fit. Also, for those who are into experimentation about their food, a great part is that there are so many new dishes to be tried that they can spend a great amount of time on that.<br /><br />The fact however remains that almost all of the items are non-vegetarian and thus to a lot of people from India that poses a great issue because of their vegetarian dietary restrictions. For someone like me however, who lies in neither categories mentioned above, while survival in Japan is pretty easy as I can eat the stuff that is available easily in the office and hostel canteens, the McDonalds and Mos Burgers at the crossroads and grab the sandwiches from the 24 hour convenience stores and eat whenever.<br /><br />But, there comes a time when on the days off, the canteens are closed, one's had way too much bread and milk, and the lazy me is in no mood to go out because of the <a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2008/12/windchill-postcard-from-japan-v203.html">windchill</a>, Maggi comes to the rescue. Simple enough that someone like me with practically ZERO cooking expertise can prepare it in a jiffy, and then eat it steaming hot.<br /><br />Maggi has been the mainstay of bachelor sustenance for as long as I can remember, as in my elder cousins taking bucketloads of it to college, me also depending a lot on Maggi at the hostel canteen for all late night snacks, and then carrying mass quantity packets of it to both my trips to the Land of the Rising Sun. Maggi without doubt is one of the god's greatest gift to bachelor-kind, nay, mankind.<br /><br />However, as I now look at the one remaining packet of Maggi remaining with me, I an wishing for the news of anyone coming here from India on any short term trip so that they can carry some and I can stock up on the supply for another few months.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-60197628741878075432008-12-20T20:00:00.000+05:302008-12-20T20:09:55.180+05:30Windchill!!! Postcard from Japan v2.03<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Wikipedia describes windchill as follows:<br /><blockquote>Wind chill is the apparent temperature felt on exposed skin, which is a function of the air temperature and wind speed. The wind chill temperature (often popularly called the wind chill factor) is always lower than the air temperature, except at higher temperatures where wind chill is considered less important.</blockquote><br />Now given that Japan is a cold country, these "higher temperatures" are nowhere to be seen except for a short duration of summer. And given it is winter (at least for us people of the northern hemisphere - those down under are perhaps enjoying their beaches right now), windchill is looming larger than life these days.<br /><br />In the morning, with the air temperature perched somewhere around the lower reaches of the thermometer, and with the wind increasing in strength, windchill becomes the prime reason of dreading the workday, displacing work from its high throne. I mean who in the right state of their minds would ever want to go out to get to office - on a bicycle no less - when the outside conditions are sure to freeze your limbs, give you frostbite and even cause a serious case of brain freeze more often than not.<br /><br />And all this when we are just halfway into December, they say that the worst is yet to come. And people used to say that <i>Dilli ki sardi</i> was the last nail in their coffins. I challenge them to come here, and face windchill, and just pray that the day does not send their way another dreaded demon of the north - Cold December Rain.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-59013842561700578622008-11-08T08:54:00.002+05:302008-11-08T09:26:23.927+05:30LANPARTY!!!! Postcard from Japan v2.02<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I'm back in the game babay, the game of playing computer games on the LAN with buddies.<br /><br />One desktop machine (sadly not mine)<br />Three (or possibly even four lappies)<br />One 5 port Ethernet Hub<br />An assortment of multiplayer co-operative, team and every man for himself games.<br />Four Gamers, three backseat gamers and a hell lot of shouting<br /><br />The above are the perfect ingredients for a small Lan-Party, and that's what it was last night, though being my first one, the machine was not so well prepared for the gaming. Things will be definitely much better next time though I guess, with me having settled up my lappie for all gaming.<br /><br />As for yesterday, I was able to hold my own in Age of Empires 2, and Quake 3. And that was without any practice beforehand. This LAN-Party scene is gonna be FUN!!!!!!<br /><br />I guess it will be a standard Friday night fixture from now on, and maybe Saturday nights too :D</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-35486926581071591312008-11-08T08:52:00.001+05:302008-11-08T08:54:06.109+05:30TGS 2008: Postcard from Japan v2.01<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I guess I should be honestly thanking Nuke for this. About a month back, one fine Thursday, we was chatting about random things when he happened to send me a link of some photographs from a videogame exhibition. Me did a little more digging, and found out that it was the Tokyo Game Show 2008, it was not over - as in the open-to-public days were the coming Saturday and Sunday, and much more importantly, it was hardly a 15 minutes walk from my current at that time location - the OVTA Training Center.<br /><br />And thus that weekend came to be known as the weekend of the TGS2008.<br /><br />Games, were there in plenty, but, also were present what actually draws the crowds to any exhibition related to games and the like. The boothbabes. They were in good numbers at every stand, and nerds were there in greater numbers to get a glimpse and snap photographs. Honest to god, I never ever saw a larger collection of people with cameras hanging around their necks, not even at the Auto Expo 2008. Of-course, how could I get left behind? My camera shutter opened and closed over four hundred times that day - and I was frankly surprised by the fact that my camera battery lasted that long.<br /><br />At the end of the day, with my legs broken from standing and walking around all day, I thought that even though nothing significant had been accomplished except filling two memory cards, I can atleast tease all my friends with "being there, done that" :P.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-82441070059399996732008-10-05T11:36:00.003+05:302008-10-05T11:47:32.497+05:30Postcard from Japan v2.0<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Reading through my blog, you might observe that there are a lot of posts with their titles same as some older ones, with just v2.0 or v3.0 appended. While some might think that this is pure stupidity, to me this comes naturally. You see, growing up the geek way, in earlier days, when software were not released yearly to make all the moolah, the major releases were numbered by increment to the next full whole number, and minor releases and bug fixes were numbered within that whole numbers as decimals. We had DOS 6, Windows 3.11, NT4. Heck I still prefer to refer windows XP as NT5.1.<br /><br />Anyway, coming back to the titles, the V2.0 here stands for the fact that this is my second long term trip to Japan, and in the first time I am writing on this trip.<br /><br />This time around, I am here for eleven months in total, compared to the two and a half long duration of the trip last summer. And more importantly, month and a half of these eleven are to be spent in a language training institute, which in my case is OVTA, some twenty miles from the capital city of Tokyo. Too bad that there are time limitations to the time that we can stay out till each night, else a night out in Tokyo wouldabeen fun.<br /><br />Anyhoo, so far the 25 odd days have been real fun. We've been to Tokyo Disneyland and watched an overdose of parades, what with Tokyo Disneyland celebrating its 25th Anniversary, and the Halloween season hanging around. Have also spent a great day roaming around the streets of Akihabara, and hanging out at the camera floor of Yodobashi Akiba, the bloody biggest electrical and electronics goods store in the world perhaps.<br /><br />The actual work for which I am here is also going on pretty decently. The 5 days a week seven hours a day language classes have given me a slight understanding of the language and the ability to carry out basic conversations. Better fluency in communication will come over time, but as of now I guess I am pretty OK on the language front.<br /><br />So far so good. Lets see what how the rest of the trip goes. Worry not, I still have lots of minor releases within the v2 of this postcard series to work on.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-1517505578335443002008-08-12T23:03:00.000+05:302008-08-12T23:03:44.679+05:30hey, I knew that<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I sometimes sit back and think about the past twenty or so years of my life that I can recollect at some level or the other.<br /><br />Of these, the earliest are no more than wisps of memories from <a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2006/04/sky-oh-so-blue.html">Lansdowne</a>, the start of schooling, the cold winters having the longer of the two school breaks, and things like that.<br /><br />Etched slightly deeper in the back of my mind are the days that I spent after moving to Delhi, continuing schooling, the correct holidays being longer in duration, the friends I used to play with and annoy or a strikingly regular basis.<br /><br />Next in line are the Rohtak days, with the memories being clearer than the previous two locations, thus including a larger spectrum of things that come to mind. Schooling (again), friends, my first time driving a jeep or riding a motorbike, my first time crashing a car into a pole, my first time falling in love with computers, and thousands of other events that haven't yet faded into oblivion.<br /><br />Next come the five golden years of my life that are written in ink, but are now slowly beginning to show signs of fading. The KGP days. In theory, these days are supposed to teach you the skills needed to get through your career. Well, don't know about that happening, but I am pretty sure that college does teach something more important than that. It teaches you the skills that help you get through life. And then a lot more. The friendships you forge there last longest, even if the friends are spread across the face of the globe. The things you learn, unlearn and relearn last through life and of-course, you enjoy this period more than any other in life. There are a million things from this time, that if I ever gather the courage to list them down, I would perhaps kill the keyboard by typing too much. Computers, html, c, cars, bikes, formula 1, gaming, one or two academic courses, the hostel, the wing, the wingoos, the sf, the summer training, the job interviews, the bunked lectures, the night-outs, the Cal-trips, and so much more, some of which is already recorded in these pages.<br /><br />The two years since then seem to have passed in a blinding flash of light, but that does not mean that they are not remembered. The Job, the first few months of no work, the following period of work increasing by the day, Japan, Agra by bike, cameras, computers some more, gaming, and some more job-things.<br /><br />The one another thing that become clear is when I am lost in these memories is that over the years, I have learnt and known a lot of stuff about a lot of varied subjects. The good part is that I can often recall a lot of it. The sad part is that as I get deeper and deeper engrossed in the things that are happening now, and as they eat up some of the disk space at the top floor, some older things slip away. I used to be proud one to be able to recite the complete specifications of some computer part just off the top of my head that some friend had come across somewhere. Today, it is difficult for me to do that.<br /><br />And inevitably, more and more things will slip away. I do not want to let that happen. Even if all these things sink deeper and deeper into the folds of grey matter in my head, I want to have some way to get back to them and say, "<a href="http://hey-iknewthat.blogspot.com/">hey, I knew that</a>".</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">If I tell you the real reason of why I am writing this new blog, you'd perhaps infer that the Psycho has really gone crazy, so I will stick with the one stated above :P</span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-59455100326475160052008-08-03T22:17:00.004+05:302008-08-04T00:22:43.263+05:30Revertigo<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I wanted to title this post "Associative Regression". However I did not. The reasons for that are two-fold.<br /><br />1. Someone <a href="http://blog.evannlyn.com/2008/04/23/associative-regression.aspx">already has a blog post</a> by the same title. (and it also deals with the same subject)<br /><br />2. The term is as much made up as the current title of the blog is. And of the two made up terms, "Revertigo" is catchier.<br /><br />So anyway, with the name of the post finalized, I should at least explain the origin of the terms.<br /><br />Made popular by the hit TV show <a href="http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/show/33700/summary.html?tag=tabs;summary">How I Met Your Mother</a>, the term Revertigo was coined by a character on the show describing how his wife reverts to her high-school self when around her friend from that time. And the term "Associative Regression" was mentioned by that friend, who is supposed to be some sort of behavioral psych scholar....<br /><br />Anyhoo, whatever be the roots of these terms, "revertigo" is now quite popular, having multiple entries at the Urban Dictionary. Associative Regression, having many more syllables, hasn't been that lucky.<br /><br />So after a pretty long prologue, now I come to the actual content of this blog post.<br /><br />As of today, if I am to sit down and think for a while, mine is a typical bourgeois existence, six days pulling twelve hour or longer days at the office, and then one in front of the idiot box of the twenty-first century - the personal computer (sometimes the twentieth century idiot box also features - usually for formula 1 races - man that was one slick move Massa pulled off today on the McLarens, they could never have seen it coming - too bad his engine blew 3 laps from the finish when he was leading). And thus this bourgeois existence gives you moments when you want to be what you earlier were. Perhaps even from half your life or more ago. And you do get a change of it when you are around someone you knew from that time and are meeting after long. And sometimes not even when really around, the modern means of communication are wonderful triggers of revertigo.<br /><br />I used to be a big-time blue blooded geek in my college days. Computer hardware was my favorite haunt, especially the x86 and related extended architectures. There was a time when there was not one piece of computer hardware of the aforementioned affiliation that I did not know about.<br /><br />And in addition to this, I was, since before college, an automobile enthusiast, and a tifosi. Thus, the favored vehicles were the scarlet Ferraris of both track and road kind. Add to those a lot more four wheeled vehicles of varying lineage, and then the two wheeled kind with engines of varied sizes slung in between, and you might be able to paint a picture that would for sure out-stretch any piece of canvas you can get your hands on.<br /><br />However, being what I am now, there really isn't much time to be a devout follower of the religion of silicon, or that of gasoline - or even diesel - so bloody brilliant diesel engines they make these days that the Le Mans 24 Hours organizers are trying to amend the rules to try and give a chance to the gasoline powered vehicles. Gasoline in your veins is a phrase that perhaps needs replacing lest the spark plug people do something, and do it quick.<br /><br />However much I claim to be a geek and a auto-afficiando, the bitter truth is that today the amount of knowledge I have about computers and cars is much less than what it used to be at a point in history.<br /><br />And this is where revertigo, in all its forms, comes into play.<br /><br />For those few hours when talking with old friends (and even some new ones) about the latest cars and bikes, or even minutes when discussing online the virtues and vices of the newest thing nVidia, Intel, ATi, AMD, Canon or Nikon, I go back. Knowing (or atleast pretending) a lot about computers, cars, bikes, and more recently Digital SLR cameras and lenses is a wonderful feeling that reminds you of simpler times without painfully long working hours and being worried sick about the next vehicle build trials and drawing release dates. Hell I have perhaps gone revertigo twice or thrice in this blog post already.<br /><br />The good part is, that whenever I am in revertigo, the world feels to be a nicer place to be in. The stress, the worries, the drawing release dates simply fade away. What remain are the things that seemed to matter the most to you back then.<br /><br />The bad part however is that when you snap out of it, all those bourgeois things are still there, more menacing than ever before, drawing closer and closer.<br /><br />As of now, I have not been able to decide whether revertigo is a good thing or a bad one. Perhaps your experiences about the same would help me reach there. What I do know for a fact is that revertigo is here to stay with me, perhaps forever. And that I miss the TV show that coined this term, and that they should hasten its return to the old idiot box, so that we can also get it on the newer one. Or, that I should go into a hibernative revertigo and ask someone to pay heed to the Green Day song that goes "Wake me up when September ends.........</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-40097461134602896862008-07-26T19:14:00.002+05:302008-07-26T19:28:46.089+05:30Reboot V2.0 + Upgrade Path<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Okay, its been another reaaaaaaaaaaaaaallly long break between posts.....<br /><br />So here I am, back on the blogosphere, raving and ranting about computers as usual....<br /><br />There's one thing you gotta both love and hate about computers. They are upgradable...<br /><br />The love part is that when building one personally, you can leave upgrade paths open by making a few decisions that will help ya go places later..<br /><br />The hate part is that given the speed of development of all these new computer components, as soon as you leave an upgrade path, it begs to be followed...<br /><br />And thus we reach the crux of the matter being discussed in this post.<br /><br />Today, I upgraded my machine.<br /><br />From a lowly 1.8GHz single core processor and a basic mainboard, to components that in their heyday were the best there were - The ASUS A8N SLi Mainboard, and the Opteron 165 Dual Core processor. While the stock clock speed of the processor is the same as my older one, its got twice the L2 cache per core, quadrupling it. AND, given that the A8N SLI was a top board, it is extremely suited to overclocking, thereby allowing me to get a lot more outta the opty 165 that I now have.<br /><br />As of now, it is just a 20% processor overclock, that I later intend to take to close to 40% - will hafta adjust the RAM speeds some more. But I will get there someday - when the weather is cold enough :D.<br /><br /></span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-41672688651183413092008-03-22T21:07:00.002+05:302008-03-22T21:33:48.002+05:30of Holidays and Non-Working Days v2, and The Long Long Wait<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><b>ACT I : of Holidays and Non-Working Days v2</b><br /><br />About a year and a half ago, I wrote about <a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2006/10/of-holidays-and-non-working-days.html">Holidays & Non-Working Days</a>. My idea those days was of being so immersed in work, that you didn't get much time to let your brain wander.<br /><br />As <a href="http://bourgeoisbuffoon.blogspot.com/">Sudu</a> says, be <a href="http://bourgeoisbuffoon.blogspot.com/2006/12/careful.html">very careful about what you wish for</a>, I actually got so much of work to do recently, that there actually was no time to think about anything. Really.<br /><br />Which is why, this v2 post. A two day break after a long long time, is really welcome. Especially when you've been working even 7 days a week sometimes, putting in 12 ~ 14 hours a day regularly at office and the fact that a colleague from my department went off to get married leaving me to take care of the issued that he usually handles. Boss's words: "take care of his work too. Will be a bit of overloading but that happens". Amen.<br /><br />Anyway, he's back now, and this two day break came along and then there are a few more 2 day breaks coming along, life's going to be a bit easier.<br /><br />So lets get to the next part.<br /><br /><b>ACT II: The Long Long Wait</b><br /><br />A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a psycho once went to Japan. And then he came back. He wished to go back, and thus he took upon himself to endure the AOTS training. Little did he know that he'd have to endure another thing. A Long Long wait.<br /><br />The Human Resources Development Department of our company is not a very commendable one, and that's like saying that a cold blooded murderer is not the kindest person I know. Anyway, what I mean to say is that the HR department being the HR department, it has delayed our forms so much that there is now a declared delay of three months. What the time duration actually is, nobody knows. That after the psycho has been waiting for almost six months already.<br /><br />There is no respite from the continuous amount of overwork being done. There is no hope of getting out of the monotonies of daily work. There is a horrifying long wait ahead of you before things will begin to look up.<br />What do you do? Go...</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-34285568098779103132008-02-03T20:30:00.000+05:302008-02-03T20:03:12.604+05:30509 Not Out<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">No this isn't mine or someone's personal best in the game with 22 players chasing a red ball with two sticks. And even though the phrase is stolen from that game, it isn't even remotely related.<br /><br />What this is related to, in fact, reinforces the fact that sometimes the best things happen pretty much unplanned, rather than after planning for hours on end. What I had been planning was a road trip to somewhere, but after about a fortnight of fits and starts of planning, it never materialized. Then one fine day, a friend sends me a message and then off we went to Agra on new year's day. And came back. On a motorbike. In fact, we visited three places in total, covered 509 km (that's the score), snapped a few pics as souvenirs and came back.<br /><br />So there I was, at 5:30 in the morning, riding to Faridabad through the twisties at 80 kmph. Little did I know that next day, I'd be reading that the temperature was about 2.6 degrees centigrade, and the windchill made it well below freezing. Reached there and waited for another biker to join us, and then set off towards Agra.<br /><br />Next stop was an toll-booth, where we decided that to begin a new year on a good note, we should go to the Lord Krishna temple in Vrindavan. So, it was a detour off Mathura, and after a short <span style="font-style:italic;">darshan</span> and 15 minutes of shivering, we were back on the road.<br /><br />The fact that Fatehpur Sikri was also on our agenda, we took a by-road, rode alone on half-maintained roads and speeds unheard of in those areas, and somehow reached our second destination. We spent maybe an hour there, got bugged to hell by self made guides, snapped a few pics in the bright sunshine, and then started off towards our next destination. The Taj.<br /><br />However, two kilometers out my friend had a little collision with a lorry that braked suddenly. Luckily, he was unhurt, and except for broken headlamp glass and a bent mudguard. Spent about an hour fixing his bike, rode on to Agra, fixed an electrical bug on the third person's bike, and then got on to our third and final destination for the day - The Taj.<br /><br />There was a loooooooooooong entry line there, and when we finally got to the entry-gate, the buggers there didn't allow me to wear my armored riding jacket while going inside. Luckily, the sun was bright so the t-shirt sufficed. Anyway, we spent sometime there, snapped a few pics again and then started back.<br /><br />Some 15 kilometers later, we stopped at a <span style="font-style:italic;">dhaba</span> and had a solid late lunch, for I hadn't eaten anything since that bread omlette at 5:00 AM. Then we started back for home, and rode almost non-stop till Faridabad. One thing that I realized was that the headlamp on my bike was shot and had to ride in perfect syncro with my friend to be able to see anything on the road.<br /><br />On reaching Faridabad, we bid goodbye to the friend who had joined us there in the morning, and then started back towards the twistied to get back home, Gurgaon. We reached back at around 10:30 PM.<br /><br />Some people later said that I did not achieve anything that day, just touching the footstones of those wonderful tourist destinations and not staying there. But for me, it was not about spending time at the destination. It was about the journey, seated in the saddle of my iron horse. That night, I had the widest grin ever on my face when I went to bed.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-27142648177784554332007-11-12T23:12:00.000+05:302007-11-12T23:19:45.438+05:30Political Correctness and the Recycle Bin<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Well there's this one thing I have been wondering about for a while.<br /><br />When you are a person like me who loves computers, you sure get to use a lot of different operating systems. I have had the experience of using many flavors of Linux, Mac OS X and of course the one that we all hate but use all the same, Windows.<br /><br />Now as it turns out, different operating systems (or OS's for short) have different names for the same things. For example, what is known in windows as the command prompt, is known as the terminal in Linux and Unix based systems. (I know this comment of mine can start a holy war, but come-on, most of my patrons are not so geeky, and thus this would be a completely sensible comparison to them). The "All Programs" part of the (Start) Menu is the "Applications", and so on. One good thing though is that Firefox is Firefox wherever it exists.<br /><br />There is one thing however that is differently named, and the way it is named makes me thing whether one big software company is trying to please the powers that be in a very subtle way.<br /><br />With the advent of the gooey (GUI) operating systems, a feature that soon found its way into our lives was the ability to delete files, but not really pipe them to null. They were simply "moved" to another place, safe until explicitly deleted, or in some cases, found to be useful and moved back to the original place.<br /><br />And this safe haven where the unwanted files find some solace is called the "Trash Can" by some and "Recycle Bin" by others. Now I am not trying to be some environmentalist or something, but these days, "Trash Can" is a bad word, especially with everyone shouting about the dying environment and the lost forest cover each year and what not. These days, it simply does not cut it.<br /><br />And this is what some genius with enough foresight at that big software company figured out. He called his trash can the "Recycle Bin". Absolutely politically correct in today's world where for all I know, I might have committed a felony worthy of a few days in the cooler when I tossed that polythene bag in the "Burnable Rubbish" can instead of the "Recycle" one.<br /><br />Guess this can give us some food for thought, but also, is this why all those open-source people can't get big governments to switch to their operating systems????</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-68378884367076352132007-10-15T00:45:00.000+05:302007-10-15T00:50:44.437+05:30Return of the Thermal Shock<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Well, its been quite some time since the incidents I am about to write about here, but I believe that these do deserve a mention.<br /><br />A query on <a href="http://www.answers.com">Answers.com</a> using the search term "Shock" (yes, an internet search, do you really expect this lazy-bum-wired-into-the-www fellow to ever look up a term in a hardback dictionary?) gives various results, and from them I will list the ones that most closely match the context of this post.<br /><br />Shock<sup>1</sup> (shŏk)<br /><br /> 1. Something that jars the mind or emotions as if with a violent unexpected blow.<br /> 2. The disturbance of function, equilibrium, or mental faculties caused by such a blow; violent agitation.<br /><br />The most common kind of shock that we always seem to be discussing about is Electric Shock, especially with the "Shock laga laga laga Shock laga" adverts doing the rounds.<br /><br />However, the thing that I am about to discuss here is, as you must have guessed by the title, to heat. (thermal, thermodynamics, heat - all related things)<br /><br />Now, keeping in line with the meaning, a thermal shock would be something that causes a blow by means of heat. Lets delve into the relevant details to better understand the situation and its implications.<br /><br />As a part of my job description, I have to take part in Full Vehicle A/C performance testing. This activity is done on a vehicle chassis dynamo-meter in a closed climate controlled chamber. Now, to do this test, the chamber is kept at a temperature of 45<sup>o</sup> Celsius, gotta match the actual temperature conditions of the Indian summer after all. And compared to the control room, which has three heavy duty split air conditioners that can bring the room down below 20<sup>o</sup>, the chamber becomes something of an oven, capable of serving fresh baked psycho. Especially when the test is underway, the vehicle is doing 100kmph on the dynamo-meter and the engine cooling fan is more than keeping up.<br /><br />So in the month of May, I was taking part in this A/C performance testing activity, and often had to go from the control room to the chamber during the test. From a cold 20<sup>o</sup> room to a 45<sup>o</sup> oven with 100kmph air blast had become the thermal shock I took on an hourly basis, sometimes more often.<br /><br />And as if that was not enough, the same thing returned in September, where for two days I was re-involved in testing, and thus back into the realm of thermal shock. Hence the nomenclature of the post.<br /><br />However, the best moment of thermal shock did not come in its return. It had come on a particularly hot May Day of testing.<br /><br />We had to change some engine room components on the vehicle after completing a test cycle, and having run in that heated chamber for two hours, the engine was pretty much boiling. To cool it down quickly we decided to bring down the chamber to 15<sup>o</sup> and also manually turn on the engine cooling fan of the chamber to create an airflow of 50kmph. And this is the moment when out boss decided to walk in on the chamber from the afternoon heat of that day. Expecting a similar environ inside the chamber, he walked into a Himalayan storm. The look on his face while gesturing to us in the control room to cut out the chamber fan through the observation window will be the signature "thermal shock" image imprinted on our minds. For a long time to come.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-80009617788216006692007-06-17T19:00:00.000+05:302007-06-17T15:30:28.309+05:30Postcard From Japan<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Okay, it has been a pretty long time now since I last posted. On second thoughts, it hasn't just been a "pretty long time", it has been a truckload of time to the power of infinity, it has been three frigging months for crying out loud....<br /><br />Anyway, whatever's happened has happened so now's high time to post a post.<br /><br />So, where was I. Yeah, in Gurgaon on some 16th floor of a slick building last time around. But now, I am on the 4th floor (or rather 5th floor in the traditional Japanese way, and also the Indian way, the "<i>paanchwi manzil</i>") of an multi-apartment building, sitting infront of a lappie (yes a lappie, this gaming rig afficiando has been reduced to a lappie user), typing out this post to my blog after ages...<br /><br />But why am I sounding so negative, heck its been a great time these last three months. Had done a lotta testing work back home at Maruti, enjoyed it thoroughly, got a great chance to come here to SMC, Japan and so here I am, in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.<br /><br /><br />So, I arrived here in Japan on 27th May, 2007, rode the Shinkansen (bullet train for the totally Japanignorant) to Hamamatsu, and will be here for a total of two and a half months. The town's a nice peaceful place, and although it is on the seashore, you can't really feel the humidity, perhaps because of the low ambient temperatures (ever heard of someone wearing jackets in the month of June).<br /><br />Now before you people start bombarding me with questions like "Is Japan as crazy as the movies show us?", I will dispel all the rumors by stating that Japan (well, atleast Hamamatsu) is as normal as a place can be. Dunno about Tokyo as yet, might get a chance to tell ya all about that place if I take a trip there in July.<br /><br />As far as other things are concerned, the trains here are awesome. No, they are Legen-wait for it-dary. I mean you can set your watches by their departures from the stations, and that is why travelling by train to office is such an easy job. Outta apartment at about 7:50AM, take a return ticket from the machine at 8:01AM, board the 8:09 train, get outta the train at the first stop, and u're in office before 8:30. Perfect.<br /><br />Some of the superstores here are HUGE, and by HUGE, I mean so severely oversized that it took the three of us almost a whole day to buy two pairs of shoes and a pair of floaters. Did a lot of random roaming around that day too, and it was fun. That was the first day of the last weekend, and on Sunday, we went to the Hamana Lake that is in Hamamatsu. Well not it is not technically a lake being joined to the sea after an earthquake, but still it is a B-E-A-utiful place. And yesterday, just roaming around the town on streets that we had not used before, we stumbled upon Hamamatsu Castle, or what remains of it, a small Castle Tower. Passed by a wedding at a Church too, while roaming around before arriving at the Castle.<br /><br />Hadta clean up my room today but spent almost the entire day in bed, watching a movie, and gotta admit it, that is for sure the better way to spend the lazy Sunday after a late bar night Saturday.<br /><br />Hmm, that seems to be enough material to write on a postcard. Heck, I'd have to hire professionals to write in tiny letters if I ever want to put so much text on a normal paper postcard, thank the internet and google and blogger and a keyboard that we can put so much of crap online for potentially everyone to read.<br /><br />Enough of my rambling for now, cya laters.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-9608805118903422682007-03-16T07:16:00.000+05:302007-03-16T07:25:26.693+05:30The Dilemma of Dressing Up<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Well, you'd have one too if you go to office daily in a uniform and suddenly you are supposed to go to work NOT in a uniform but in regular clothes. That too for ten days straight. You're in big trouble. You have no idea what is the usual dress style at work these days. You cannot decide on what to wear from the few normal clothes you have tucked away in some corner of the wardrobe. And sometimes you have no idea where that corner of the wardrobe is.<br /><br /><a href="http://unmetalledhighway.blogspot.com/2007/03/life-on-16th-floor.html">Life on the 16th floor</a> was one such period. Ten days of work away from office. Well, at least its over for me now. But now the same dilemma haunts my roomie. Its his turn now on the 16h floor, and he's as confused as me. All I can say to him is "Suit Up".</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-88726297665405732752007-03-10T20:07:00.000+05:302008-11-13T11:28:34.475+05:30Life on the 16th floor<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So i have been outta the office for about a week now. NO, I am not AWOL. I am on an official CAD software training, and the training location is the slick corporate office of the company that provides the software to my company. Now this office happens to be on the 16th floor of one of those newfangled Gurgaon buildings, and oh my, its a sight to behold looking out from the windows of the training room.<br /><br />Here are a few of the pics i took minutes after reaching that place (thank you camera phone :D). The parked cars and bikes, the road a hundred meters away, and the flat expanse of Gurgaon and Delhi in the distance. It looks AWESOME. Click on the images to see full sized versions.<br /><br /><a href="http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1200/06032007103eg4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-c_PNC1qi838EuETSJ1HM4RGdKrv2KzltLVOwsvw4WEpCxJshltr2EqXv-rVbXcke_fD62MhXt10-3BeGd_MvUAjmRkvOgKT0jx2uEKEbO8dLvY2V0xGfu7uFRF6wecaZkrg/s320/06032007103.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040309556930679554" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6482/06032007104rz4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXbyWVWd_cyzgSOlLwukilOi9nH_C1YlbZ8psH8Zp-vvsEXw2bAGnrALnkFv-ByGbLwKWryd8jQlOO557CGtYan9EXWgwReYlpuh7b7ady5D9oUjD_wxH6OANcdTK8iy-DEiCq/s320/06032007104.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040310166816035602" /></a><br /><a href="http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/6803/06032007107eq5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwvMfLZII8yv-XyQ8B8NkoLh50w2SI6EuAPBjUnhACKA3haghng9_9zvQV1Hgp0uTTmYgbcvgefB-kJxQot8Oatpm8EJCjsTKOq-23kZmXYt3h18U6qs4HQ9YbBZJXuqNMEUF/s320/06032007107.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040310420219106082" /></a><br />PS. This is also the 50th post in my blog. Glad that I could bring it to this milestone. Gotta try and make it go a much longer distance.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-72504098391421439782007-03-05T12:28:00.000+05:302007-03-05T12:39:37.840+05:30Changing Lanes<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Sometime, going along the unmetalled highway of life, you stick to a lane, following something elusive so intently that you sort of miss out on what else is there around you.<br /><br />Maybe you realize what has been happening, and suddenly you are jerked out of your trance. Or, it takes a friend to put you back on track. But sooner or later, it happens. You change lanes on the highway. With the hope that you don't fall back into the trance anymore.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-44334049445289992172007-02-18T18:51:00.000+05:302007-07-22T07:02:28.128+05:30Two wheels and an engine<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The motorcycle has changed a lot in its century old existence. There have been hundreds and thousands of technological advances, countless changes in design philosophies, lots of ups and downs in the motorcycle industry, but the essence has remained the same - <b>Two Wheels and an Engine</b>.<br /><br />Among all the various automobiles the motorcycle is the most expressive. In a car or something similar, you are enclosed in a claustrophobic cabin, way too isolated from the elements. On a motorbike you are free. You can be as close to nature as you want to be. They say that only a biker knows why a dog sticks it head outta the car window. The wind in the hair feeling is more than awesome. (The full face helmets take away most of this feeling, but safety is also a prime concern.. right).<br /><br />I read in a book that the first bike race happened when two bikers met on the street somewhere. That is the spirit of biking. Today, bike racing is a huge sport, spread across various categories. And there is nothing like the sound of a high revving bike engine on an idle Sunday afternoon.<br /><br />There are various types of bikes available on the market, the lean mean sports bikes with screaming engines, the muscular big engined bikes, and the cruisers with seats like couches and engines throbbing away in a chorus of rumble. Choose whatever suits you, it will be pure fun. Go on a brisk uphill drive on a winding road or let a bike stretch its legs on a long open highway, it will be pure exhilaration.<br /><br />As I write this post, newer and more powerful bikes are being launched in India, with a lot more hope for the future. Some day, I hope to be able to ride a three-quarters engined bike here, and it might be sooner rather than later given how things are progressing.</span><br /><br />This post was a tribute to motorbiking by the author, who returned to two wheels after more than a month of imprisonment inside four wheeled automobiles.</span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-1171196592097316182007-02-11T17:55:00.000+05:302007-02-16T16:24:07.203+05:30Chandigarh Times<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This post recollects some of the memories of the month long Sales and Service "Training" trip to the Chandigarh regional office. Trying to put this one in a new style...<br /><br /><b>Gurgaon to Chandigarh</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Sunday, November 26, 2006. 1100 Hrs.</span><br />Dump all the luggage in the car, pick up Rockstar from his place. Drive from Gurgaon to Chandigarh with a lunch stopover at Karna Lake. Reach at about 1800 Hrs and settle into that hole of a PG accommodation.<br /><br /><b>One hour @ Sec.17</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Friday, December 01, 2006. 1700 Hrs</span><br />Go to the Sector 17 market in Chandigarh, see a Subway and enter. Eat to your heart's content. Go out and buy two novels at a bookstore, roam around for sometime and then go back "home". One hour, seven hundred bucks. Good time.<br /><br /><b>Wheelspin / Slipping Clutch</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Saturday, December 02, 2006. 2300Hrs.</span><br />Front row at a traffic intersection. Slot the transmission into 1st gear, bring the clutch to the biting point. As the light turns green, drop the hammer on the gas pedal (accelerator for the uninitiated) and release the clutch. Wheelspin off the mark and scare the living daylights outta the rear seat passenger. Bliss :D.<br /><br /><b>Lazy Dayz</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Wednesday/Thursday, December 06-07, 2006.</span><br />AWOL from office for two straight days, lying down on the bed all day, reading those novels bought earlier. Sort of reliving some of the time spent likewise during college days. Lazy is fun :).<br /><br /><b>Three Crazy Days</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Saturday - Monday, December 09-11, 2006.</span><br />Start from Chandigarh at 0615 Hrs for Rohtak, drive in the fog for around quarter of an hour at an ant's pace, and then floor it for a breakneck speed drive at upto 140kmph, making it a total of 240km in four hours. Spend the day at Rohtak, stay up late partying, drive to Delhi and then to Gurgaon, pack up stuff for moving, go back to Delhi to attend a wedding, stay up all night, drive back to Gurgaon. Sleep for four hours before another long drive to Chandigarh. 3 Days, close to 800kms, with a total of ten hours' sleep in between. That's a good pace to live life at.<br /><br /><b>A novel a day keeps the office away</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Friday, December 15, 2006. 2200 Hrs.</span><br />Continuing the tradition of the Lazy Dayz, read one more novel in a day being AWOL from office. Perhaps for the last time ever.<br /><br /><b>Wrapping Up</b><br /><span style="font-size:80%;">Saturday, December 23, 2006. 1430 Hrs.</span><br />Get a lucky early relief from office on the last working day. Rush to the PG and haphazardly dump all luggage in the car, and pick up some more from Rockstar's place. Drive non stop from there to Delhi to end the month long tryst.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14404246.post-1170336076314474192007-02-01T18:52:00.000+05:302007-02-02T20:33:47.653+05:30O, B, T and I<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">OBT here stands for Out-Bound Training. They say that it is an important part of the training we undergo as fresh engineers but all we care about are the three days of endless fun at the riverbank.<br /><br />We had our outbound training from 20th November to 23rd November. (Sorry for such a late blog-post). It all began at the factory premises where we all boarded a bus for the overnight journey to Rishikesh and then on to Shivpuri Camp. There were about twenty-five of us and we crossed the river to get to the campsite in rafts, riding on the current of the last rapids, after the bus driver had brought us down to the accessible bank by driving along a precariously inclined path. The view around us was wallpaper material so we all snapped a few pictures.<br /><br />And then the training began. We had a few sessions of trust building exercises, but this was the dull part of the game. Later in the evening we had artificial rock-wall climbing and grappling, in which yours truly lost his nerves after reaching the midway point. (note to self: reduce weight + gain some more strength).<br /><br />We then returned to the camp to a bonfire party before dinner. Acoustic guitar and hoarse voices jammed on some of the favorite bonfire tunes, and it was a time to enjoy.<br /><br />Next day we had some more adventure sports, Burma-bridge crossing, valley crossing (suspended upside down - military style), and the best part of the trip - the raft building and test drive. Using bamboo poles, two large plastic containers, three inflated tire tubes and rope, we made rafts that braved the river. Funny thing was that we thought that each team had to take only one test ride, so we selected all those who knew how to swim for the job. Later, we found that there had to be two test rides and on the second one four of us who did not know swimming at all got to take out the raft. Was awesome :D.<br /><br />Later that evening, after dusk, we went into the woods for a "night-navigation", where we got thoroughly lost and reached to the camp pretty late. Where it was time for another Bonfire Party. This one was much more enjoyable than the previous day's (primarily because I had about twice the amount of alcohol inside me compared to last evening).<br /><br />Stayed up that whole night with friends, and then the next day we had another team building and co-ordination exercise. Rolling Basketballs. Had lunch and then we set off back for Gurgaon. Exhausted, almost everyone slept off in the beginning of the journey, but later we all woke up and sang ourselves hoarse(i.e. with whatever was left of our voices after two days of singing at bonfires). We also shot a interview movie with what everyone had to say about the OBT Trip.<br /><br />At the end of it, these three days seems too less a time, the OBT seemed to get over all too quickly. Kya karein, yeh dil maange more.<br /><br />Looking back at that time now, it wasn't just an endless sequence of adventures and exercises, it was rather more about strengthening friendships, starting new ones and having one hell of a blast, which for me was after a long long time.</span></span>Psycho McCrazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04812884572644382260noreply@blogger.com4