The magic of a deadline

"Kal kare so aaj kar,Aaj kare so ab"--> Kabir

This timeless adage is a gem of a statement. The world will solve 80%

of its problems by adopting such an approach. Translated into english,

it reads as, "Do today whatever you would do tomorrow, do now whatever

you intend to do today". This is also one of the most misunderstood

proverbs. People literally translate it and ask questions like "How can

you do something whatever you have to do tomorrow?". Examples are taken

of classes, train journeys and believe it or not, performing ablutions.

Basically what the great man wanted to convey was that procrastination

had to be avoided. Procrastination leads to great trouble. Such a case

happened with me today.

The task that i had been assigned was to develop a program in MATLAB

for one of the classical problems in Power System Dynamics i.e a plot

of the maximum power transmitted vs critical clearing angle. This

requires only a half an hour calculation of equivalent impedances at

the faulted point, folowed by their attachment to the fault point

followed by network reducton to obtain the reactance between the

machine bus and the infinite bus. Later, one has to write a few

statements to incorporate this into a program. Ideally, allowing time

for debugging, this should have taken a maximum of 2 hours.

What actually happened was a gross procrastination. This assignment was

pushed around for a week. The prof finally lost patience today and

ordered that the assignment be solved in the lab and submitted in the

evening. Man, you should have seen how quickly the job was done. Now,

if only i had done it earlier...

A NEW DIN-I-ELAHI BY A 21ST CENTURY AKBAR-->SECULARISM ROCKS

"Losing my religion"...REM, "Out of time"

The Mughal emperor Akbar was known for his tolerance towards other

religions specially hinduism. The major hindu force during his reign

was The Rajputs. Akbar did have his successful campaigns against the

Rajputs but he believed in burying the hatchet. He even went to the

extent of marrying a Rajput princess Joda Bai.

One of Akbar's brilliant ideas was to create a new religion comprising

the best features of all religions. You may be wondering why Iam

writing on such a topic. Well, all that i can say is that the

inspiration was sudden. It dawned on me in my FACTS class, when the

fundas concerning a single phase inverter were so blatantly being

twisted and shown to us as the holy grail of power electronics. (not

that i am some big don in PE). What i am going to do is to formulate a

new religion for the modern world with features that i feel are

necessary. These are my views and its upto you to agree with me or

not.so, here goes.......

Religiously Yours.......Resume

Name: Secularism rocks

Target audience: The world

Date of birth: 24/1/2005

Sex: Asexual

Parents: This religion is a child of God

Education: The school/college/university called earth

Performance: Theory subjects=100% Practicals=(not yet tested)

Hobbies: Unifying the world, providing peace of mind, removing

differences between people

Characteristics:

(1) Aham Brahmasmi...God is within each one of us

(2) Compulsory prayer everyday

(3) Equality of all beings whatever maybe their sex, sexual

orientation, social status, occupation etc(no animal farm fundas like

"more equal than the others" please)

(4) A clarion call to give up arms

(5) Compassion for the poor and the weak

(6) An opportunity to be spiritual and materialistic at the same time.

(7) No sub divisions of the religion shall be permitted

(8) Freedom to do anything as long as it does not hurt or offend others

(9) The holy book shall be "CATCH 22"

(10) The holy hymns shall be "Is there anybody there" by Scorpions,

"Amsterdam" by Coldplay, "Bulla ki Jaana" by Rabbi Shergill, "Cats in

the cradle" by Ugly Kid Joe,"My Sharona" by The Knack and "take away my

pain" by Dream Theatre

***********************************************************************

Hopefully you will agree with me and help me to add some points. Alvida

dear reader, "May my tribe increase!!!!!!"

Keshav,Gandhi and the unknown Nari

As i sit before my comp, trying to say awake so that i do not miss my early morning train to lucknow, I am tempted to read a blog. The best blogs (among the people i know) are written by kesh, gandhi and railmani. Kesh and Gandhi have stopped writing for reasons which i know (in gandhi's case) and for reasons unknown (in kesh's case).
In the midst of this, i recollect the name of a person about whom i have only heard but never met. this guy is nari, who could have been my colleague in oracle if i had joined. this chap is a PI too. checking out his blogs now, they seem interesting. got to meet him sometime. kesh, if you are reading this, u know what to do.
Another thing which flashes before my eyes is the night outs i spent with keshav in college. led zep was a 'stimulant' during those hous when we mastered the OPCODE of the Motorola 56F801. keshav ,i miss u maga.......
gandhi is in a different league altogether. people may feel that i may not be as close to him as i am with keshav. who so ever thinks like that, i just got two words for u.."F*** you".....i myself can't describe how close we are..maybe i can express my reasons through a Hindu Crossie.........miss u too maga.......
And nari....this depends on how u pronounce it and what meaning u infer. this word can mean a fox, a woman or the 'Not yet met friend of kesh and gandhu.....'......excuse my language, if that ain't possible then 'execute me'...........

literature surveys!!!

Whenever you embark on a project, the first task that you are entrusted with is the literature survey wherein you sift through all available literature for stuff that suits you the most. They may be technical papers, websites or manuals.
The case is no different with my project "Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC): in power distribution systems". I have scored my century (wrt to the number of papers selected) . I need to put a stop at some stage, or else 'Literature survey on UPQCs" will end up being my semester project.
Anyone who has material on UPQCs plz pass it on to krishnandeepak1@yahoo.com....PLEASE

An Olympian encounter

How many of us actually get to meet sportspersons without the glare of the media spotlight? its an impossibility in india if that sportsperson is a cricketer. yesterday was a special day...i managed to meet the only silver medalist in my country's olympic history,Lt Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and what more, spoke a few words and also got his autograph.
this happened at the Army day parade of the Indian Army which commemorates the day the first Indian took over the command of the Indian Army. That illustrious soldier is Field Marshall Cariappa. Its also a matter of pride that he is from my home state Karnataka. Madikeri is the exact place if you care for details. Visit this place if you can.
The parade was brilliant. I was amazed by the perfect synchronism of the various events. There was also an amazing display of my army's strengths.....

Wasting time and the nuances associated with it

Time....this has been a 'timeless' friend of mankind right from its inception. time has been with us and its only when we felt the need of time to measure progress that we invented the concepts of so many hours in a day and all that hogwash.
we have been told right from our childhood that this is a precious resource. but at the same time it is the most abused resource too. why? thats because we do not get punished for wastage of this resource. take an example of petrol. do u have the balls to waste petrol? unless u are an 'amir baap ke bigde aulat' (trans: spoilt rich brat)...u will not dare to. why? because u feel the pinch on ur pocket right?
talking of such things may seem trivial. but there is an art to wasting time. yea baby!!! an art!!!! there are different ways:- surf unnecessarily, fantasise, sleep, roam around, gossip etc
this was my case till the first semester of my master's. but from my second semester i hardly find time to waste. you can say its a catch 22 situation....one one hand u don't have enough time and on the other hand u cannot waste it. still trying to figure it out.