On Puppies, Kittens, Pandas and a 24 Hour Code Sprint Which Led to Awwsome, an Android App.

In the IT industry, "I have an idea, I am going to make an App about it" is similar to "I have an idea, I am going to write a book about it" for the rest of the world (Maybe not the whole world, but I couldn't find the right category).
Now, I have both those things on my bucketlist. And finally after a 24 hour coding marathon, one of them has been checked.

Download Awwsome on your Android.

The Story Behind Awwsome.
I have been visiting reddit quite often since the past few months. One of my favourite subreddits is r/aww. People post images of their pets, put catchy titles and all. It makes you go aww, legit.

Some of the pics are too awwdorable (pardon me). I often end up e-mailing them to people close to me, probably in the form of good morning messages. Them pups are ought to give a good jumpy start to the day. Instant mood lifters whenever you are feeling low.

That's what sparked the idea. An instant mood lifter. Awwsome is an android app which greets you with images of kittens, pups, squirrels, hedgehogs and everything nice on your phone. Plus, sharing with your closed ones is just a button press. Simple.

Download on Play Store.

So one night before going to sleep, I quickly drew on a paper the basic interface and jotted down the functionalities promising myself to work on it tomorrow. As I had mentioned earlier, I really wanted to make the most of these vacations.

Next morning, enter Panda aka Shantanu Jain. Panda is like this one stop android guru. On a normal day, he is always tinkering one thing or the other. He already has 5 apps to his name I think.  He is a proper machedu. And I am not going to plug an english translation to that. He is a machedu.

We decided to give ourselves a 24 hour deadline to finish this application and have it published on the Play store.


It was about 12:30 PM when we started. Both of us sitting in one corner of the rc.
We weren't going to host the images or the database on the clients app and instead put it up on server online. I was in-charge of that. A python based script to collect the content,  an online service to communicate with the application and the database which would hold all the content.
Panda was supposed to make Android part and its client side functionalities.

About 30 minutes later, Panda and other friends decided to watch Heropanti. After watching Xpose its been downhill for us. All of us our experimenting with such movies, for research purposes ofcourse. After Xpose, Main Tera Hero and Yamla Pagla Deewana 2, I realized I was about to cross the point of no return and stopped myself. Treated myself to Highway and came back to senses. But friends went ahead and watched Gunda and now Heropanti.

Anyway, so Panda left. I was left alone in the very same corner. I kept working on the data collection script and was done in an hour or so. The main barrier was to put that data up on appengine. There were 1000+ entries to be made. For uploading bulk data on appengine, they have this functionality called the bulkloader, but it didn't have enough documentation and SO didnt answer much.

I ignored that method, and tried thinking of some Jugaad. By 6 PM nothing moved and I decided to chuck it and play some football. I decided to resume work post dinner, by that time Panda would have also recovered from the movie.

Post Dinner I decided to ignore the jugaad and attack the problem through the proper way, trying to follow each step of the bulkloader method. Again by 2 AM nothing moved and I decided to give up that method.

I figured out another way in which I converted the csv as a txt and uploaded it. Used the interactive consolve to urlfetch the file, pass it through the python csv module and use each to row to fill the database. It worked. Such a relief.

After that I finished the service and added the random picture functionality. It was a breeze. My work was done.

Panda was still working on the app, the feature to share photos with friends wasn't working as expected. But a machedu he is, he got it figured out. A lot was left on his side, admob, favourites, client database etc.

Now, I don't code in Java. The last I coded in Java was in my second semester. Since then it has always been Python for me. Even my GSoC project is in Python.
I was pretty jobless, and hence started working on the write-up for the store, different promotional banners, twitter profile, facebook page, logo and the name.

We were supposed to do everything in those 24 hours.


We were pretty confused about the name. From the very beginning it was supposed to be DailyCute which would pave the path for such similarly themed apps by us in future. Sometime during the night, I thought Awwsome was a pretty rad name. But the very fact I could hardly find anything named on the internet made my doubt myself. Was it too shitty? How come nobody uses it? Must be shitty.

Anyway, after a lot of deliberating, we decided it would be Awwsome. We were making, coding, publishing Awwsome. See? Its such an awesome name. Hmm. Maybe.

By 8 AM in the morning I was done. With everything. Twitter. Facebook. Banners. Everything.

Panda was still coding the app. I wish I could help him. I was feeling pretty bad.

By 11:30 AM. Everything was done. We were testing it, adding small features and everything. Panda made the apk and uploaded it and went to the next bed and dozed off. I was supposed to fill in the write ups, screenshots and the various forms required  before publishing the app. We released the app in beta. It takes a fews hours before it goes live, and I decided to sleep as well.

I woke up at around 6 PM. Panda was already up. He couldn't sleep in the heat. He was already making minor changes and was ready to make the app live for everyone. He is such a workaholic. We made it live. Now Google takes a few hours to make it available. Soon, Awwsome was live :)

24 hours of coding, some dalwaddein, tons of images of puppies and kittens later, Awwsome was born. Published and live in the Play Store.

It is a very good feeling. It is exciting. Its an amazing feeling everytime some code you've written interacts with the world. Many people have absolutely loved the idea and the product.

What happens now?
The excitement dies slowly. Because its tough to get your word out there. Its tough to market. Its tough being shameless. I feel a little bit odd plugging the app in every conversation. But I know it is something good and it is worth it. I have to accept that marketing requires effort. A lot. I know if people would just download it once, they will like it. And I am not even taking credit for it, how can one not like puppies? Are you even human?

Well, if you like the idea, please give it a go :) It will definitely make you smile. Pakka. Promise.

How you can help us?
Download on Play Store. Rate and Review!(FYI. You can download an app in your phone from your laptop too. Open the Play Store Now.)

Like Awwsome on Facebook. We post aww images.

Follow @AwwsomeApp us on Twitter.

Spread the word, it will mean the world to us. Every download equals one tummy rub to us some puppy. Do it because one of the developer is named Panda. Ok? No? Hmm.

So anyway, if you have an idea for an app, just go for it, set a deadline for yourself, or best do a 24 hour coding marathon. It is tiring, but extremely satisfying. This blogpost itself is part of a daily one hour writing sprint. Now, I need to work on the second point on the bucketlist :)

Complete Guide To Summer Breaks In College.

What college students should do this summer vacations?

How to make sure you spend your summers in college effectively. A few things a college student could do during his/her summer break and how not to waste it away?

Okay. So your summer break is about to start or it has started already. You are really excited to do things. All those pre-exam bucketlists and amazing ideas you had night before the exam or even during the exams. It is time for them.

If you are in your first year, chances are that you are going to waste this summer. Most people do, and yes most people were as excited about it as you are right now. But they wasted it. Its too easy to do so. With the summer heat, the comfort of your home and newly acquired bundle of series and movies which are instant answers to your 'I am getting bored'. Don't let it be a summer in which you finish oh so many seasons and movies and did nothing else. At least don't let it be just that.

On College and Drawing Your Masterpiece Right

Small things trigger back nostalgia . It can be a good feeling or a bad feeling. The one I am talking about triggered guilt. Not that I did something bad back then, its about how i am now with respect to that time. I am talking about my first few days in college. The excitement, fear, drama, the feeling, being alone and independent. Every moment was so exciting. And it wouldn’t be exaggeration branding them magical.

The person I was then and the person I am now are miles apart. In my case, I am sure the former looks down upon the later. Are you really what you planned yourself to be?

Comic : What is Discreet Maths?

The truth about Discrete Discreet Maths.

It is exam time, and I am really bored.

This is my second comic, the first one was about placement sessions and their irony in college.

I have a different story for this one, but decided to stick to this. Will probably draw the other one post exam. It did seem funny in my head.

If you like it, please comment and click here to subscribe. Posts get sent to your mailbox. Technology. Please. It gets lonely at times :'|

Also, shhhhhh.

Here it is.

She is such a buzzkill.

So just after I posted the last post, this happened.

So anyway, that is Chinar. She is a thing. If you are from my college, you already know her. If not, you really need to know her.

On Olay, Olay :D

So, I have a Coding Theory assignment and an OS code left to be done. But that can all wait.

Usual summer afternoons are completely unbearable. Waking up in sweat, looking up in despair only to find a cob web ridden ceiling, and the most worthless fan ever working at half its capacity. But today, I woke up at 5 to find a completely pleasant weather outside. Not the stark unforgiving blue, but something more pleasant. I figured I must have checked the time wrong, unable to think straight. Anyway, it was 5 PM and it was super cloudy. Tea and biscuits were had and I headed to the library, controlling my urge to go to CEP terrace. I felt like a Labrador :| Waiting for rains. Completely excited. A spring in my step. More like, "Its going to happen, yes it going to happen." 
The clouds were playing out different shades of yellow and grey, just when the sun was singing its swansong and winds were picking up speed. The stage was set.


It rained :D or rather hailed. Chaos. It became super windy! Trees started getting uprooted. You could hear the rain and all its entourage. Making a scene. It was amazing. With the winds blowing at your face at such speeds, washing your face with all the rain, ah :) Bliss.

Here is a video, a friend took from outside his room.

Of the many things that are awesome about Daiict, the one thing is, you keep falling in love with her again and again. You'll hate her at times, become indifferent to her, and then she plays her cards, carefully waiting for the right moments. You vixen! When it rains for the first time on campus, you fall hard of it. Its almost magical the way the campus transforms. The orange street lights and the fluorescent ones. Such high winds, with water vapours dancing away from one light to another, orange to fluorescent. Almost enjoying the spotlight, afraid to come to the ground and call it a night. Your minutes of fame.

Thanks for the photos Anuj, and mailing them as "Gujju Snowfall"

And then it hailed. Hailed in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Tried picking up a hailfight, but eh. Failed.

Anyway, I am like really happy right now. And if you pass by me right now in library and give me a smile, I will give you a damn big grin with gleaming eyes, creep you out. Possibly ending our communication for the rest of the time I am still in college.

Life seems really clean and simple. Life is good. One of the best weekends of this semester for multiple reasons :)

On Placement Sessions, Personal Interviews and Irony.

Today was an institute holiday (Good Friday), but we were supposed to attend a session by one of the premier coaching institutes about writing our resumes and on giving good PI's. Even though the initiative meant well, I couldn't stop myself from being cynical about the presentation being given. Maybe, because it took the good out of my Friday morning.

I ended up doodling about it in my notebook. Here is the digital version. The irony was too high in this one.




















Also, this.

Ps. If you are offended by this, well. A good sense of humor is a must for getting selected into these premier institutes. Trust me. I know. A random-number-assume-any % of people who have had a good sense of humor got into IIM-A.

Ps. Any resemblance to any person or company in real is completely coincidental. I may have imagined about all this, um the sleeping guy in the pic.

Ps. Used the above disclaimer for the first time in my life. *excited*

Comment :)

On Why I Started Hating My Blog

So, I haven't really been honest with my blog lately. The last post hit it off on Reddit and got me a lot of views and I think that killed it for me. The blog wasn't personal anymore. To be honest, yes the last piece was humorous, but it wasn't me.I don't mind something going mildly famous, but then it has to be something which I really feel for, not a post I ranted out in an hour over some ants.

The blog probably felt like writing for CoolAge all over again. I started writing for CoolAge in my first year of college, but could never reach the minimum amount of articles to redeem payment. And you could count that threshold with your fingers. I was one or two articles short when I finally decided to ditch it. It was more like a report writing job. Write a 400-500 long (long?) article, and get easy money. Had it been freelancing or something I would have still done it. But that writing represented me. I remember what tripped the switch. I sent an introspective article about a change in sleeping patterns I experimented with during one particular set of exams. Sleeping through the day, reading all night in peace, having crisp Mendu Vada's in the morning, and then going to sleep again, evading the noise and confusion of everyday life. It was peaceful. I didn't do it for a day or two, but almost a fortnight. There was a lot of introspection, I will try to find the article again. Anyway, CoolAge rejected it saying, it was too personal. What?! I edited it a little and sent it back, getting the same reply. And I decided to stop writing. I wasn't going to do something I don't like just for the sake of money. Especially, not before I graduate atleast when money isn't a constraint. For me writing is essentially spilling out of my heart. I don't know fancy words, I usually don't go out of line to think of smart puns or anything, I try to write exactly what comes to mind. Its an outlet to the thoughts I have usually, and not thoughts that were cultivated just for the sake of the writing exercise. I am not sure if I am making sense.

Fuck, that was some detour. I was planning on a really short post.




The personal feeling and vibe this blog had for me walked away with the publishing of the ant post, dejected, walking away sadly, teary eyed, contemplating whether it should look back or not. 

Not that I haven't been writing, I am still working on the the Ladakh memoir, and I am proud of what it is turning into. By the end of this summer it will be done. Hopefully. Or it will be too late, and then it would turn into fiction.

Other than that, I was recently reminded of the pleasure of spilling out everything, like no censors, everything, not giving a flying f' about the world writing, by a pair of letters I exchanged with a friend. And here I am on my blog again.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee are getting back together. (Sing it like the Taylor Swift song, but like an outro, okay?)

Diwali Break in Retrospection and Rants about the 'Rich' and the 'Founders'

How my Diwali bucket list failed miserably and rants about the Pot Bellied Rich and for-the-heck-of-it Startup Founders.
So I had planned to do so many things in the 10 day break I had.



Well this is the 8th day and I am going to look back on how much I have accomplished.

First, the grandiose plans that were made:

1. Complete these three books:
   
   • The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar (Read!)
   • Dear Life by Alex Munroe
   • Think Everest: Scaling Mountains with the Mind
2. Resume writing about the trip to Ladakh
3. Start studying for the end semesters, because c'mon I don't even precisely remember the last time I went to the LT.
4. Work on the GCDC project.
5. Finish the dbms submission(Yeah right!)

So much right? The things we think we'll do and the things we actually do. The difference is wider than the gaping expression you had after the Red Wedding episode in GoT.

The percentage I completed?
26.6%
Wait the percentage does sound high. Misleading.

I worked on the GCDC project and completed one of the books. Yay me!

-About the book:
How is the book, The Monk and the Riddle?
I really enjoyed reading it. It starts a little slow but by the end it is really gripping. You can call it as an self help book for people who want to find their calling in life. But it really concentrates on start-ups and gives the inside story of the Silicon Valley culture. It's not about how you should manage a business or write a business plan or anything. Please. It's not that. It's more about asking yourself why you want to do it? It talks about how we keep postponing what we really want to do in life and instead do things which we think are the responsible things to do. It's about the deferred life plan. The one which you follow instead of the whole life plan. The writer is really passionate about the topic and speaks his heart out. I really recommend this book, check it out.

<rant>
Common Start Up Stupidity
I find a lot of people caught with the start up craze. I am sure you have too, especially if you are in an engineering college. I am not saying it is bad. It is bad when you are doing it just for the heck of it. With no originality what so ever. Doing something which is already being done. Nothing new. Bleh. But that is my personal opinion. Shouldn't getting something new to people, adding some really cool features to an existing concept, filling the gaps or changing lives be your aim? By doing something already being done with no substantial change whatsoever you are not really adding value to anyones life. Is it a new better way of doing something which is already being done? Foremost, do you really feel for the idea? I am not blaming you if making money is your only aim, but I hope you don't. If you are one of these people, please read The Monk and the Riddle. Please? Don't get me wrong, I am totally in for the independence and all the entrepreneurial spirit and all that but not for soulless-cash-making-oh-I-am-so-cool-founder shit. If you are not passionate about it you are going to lose your interest as quickly as you finished making the facebook page of your startup.
</rant>


Oh I have a few more rants.
<rant>
Super Rich Pot Bellied People
Diwali means meeting a lot of people and going to parties and community gatherings. Well most of them are infected with people that I have had the opportunity to inspect closely while sitting quietly in the corner eating the buffet dinners. Not that its hard to spot them, unless you are them. Super rich pot bellied people. Super rich people who wear shiny clothes, spit out of cars, buy expensive phones and flaunt them by clicking pictures of people they usually don't talk to, also take centuries to click that photo.
 The moment they open their mouth, all that they've earned drops out like coins from slot machines with the displeasing metallic clanking sound matching their ill worded mouths tone.
</rant>

Disclaimer: I could have thought more critically about this subject, but heck I just want to write whatever comes to my mind. Blog v2.00 remember?

Hmm, I shall limit my randomness.



I will finish the other two books by the end of this semester, which means 20 days. I will completely ignore the fact that it took my a month to complete Lolita with my 2 pages per day before bedtime routine. Also that I have my end semester exams starting soon and its only 12 days to my GCDC submission.

A place to note down and over optimism, the two prerequisites of making bucket lists.

Anyway, the second thing.

-Resume writing about Ladakh. 

Well that couldn't happen but I am planning to dedicate entire tomorrow to this. It's all about getting into the zone. Once I am in the zone with the right amount of nostalgia, enough to make me excited but not that much that'll render me dreamy and leave me feeling frustrated about not being able to go back in the near future.

-Start studying for end semesters? . . . .
Bleh.




-Work on the GCDC project?
Oh btw, GCDC is Google Cloud Developer Challenge.
It is going really well. More about it in a different post. But it is almost done. We just need to plug the backend and then frontend together and work on the interface. All major backend problems have been solved.

-Finish the DBMS lab submission.
Well it is almost done. We were asked to make a dbms for a project management software. Completely from scratch. From the SRS (Software Requirement Specs) to the implementation in PostgreSQL.

Well I was recently working on populating the database with fictional data using a Python script. It really was a no-brainer but it was fun randomizing the data and making sure the foreign keys weren't violated.

Well, that is it.

Happy New Year and Happy Diwali :)

Comment about your Diwali break bucket lists and what all you did :)

Off to Oasis ' 13 : The songs we are performing in BITS-Pilani

I am just dropping in for a quick post because that is what I promised in an earlier post. All my enthusiasm to post about every single thing turned out to be ephemeral like almost every other ambition I have these days. Ephemeral. Ahh, this word wiil never leave me. The irony.

I am leaving for BITS-Pilani's cultural fest tomorrow. We were supposed to go to IIT-Kanpur's fest but things got messy and our college's music club didn't get accommodation there.

Well I am not really excited about the Pro night because it is going to be Farhan Akhtar. I am mainly excited about the Suicide at Midnight event. You are supposedly taken to a dark room at midnight duh with candles etc and made to write your own suicide note. This time they are also going to make us write a will. Other than that I've heard that they have 3 v 3 football on a field watered with soap. Well I really really really hope it is true.

Well the primary motive behind going to Oasis is for participating in the western band competition. We are performing a total of 4 songs. Others are also participating in Indian classical and other solo categories.

Even the Dance troupe of our college, Dance Coders , are coming to Pilani. The drama group is going to Kanpur. Everybody is split up. Ah, the commotion and drama.

Anyway, you should check all 4 of the songs we are performing.

Jeremy by Pearl Jam. It is about a guy named Jeremy who faces bullying. It is really a masterpiece. It is based on a real life incident. Jeremy was bullied a lot and was suppressed, and he finally speaks in front of the class by committing suicide in front of everyone. You really need to watch the video. Eddie Vedder was inspired to write this song when he read a small article about Jeremy in the local newspaper.

There is a sudden surge of Pearl Jam songs being covered in my college. What more could you want? I think every Friday Night Live has one Eddie Vedder being performed. I am really proud of DAIICT's music scene. I think I will write one post about it when I return.

Who did that to you by John Legend. This song reminds me of Jack White's cover of Love is Blindness. Ah, I just love this song. Well this song is in Django Unchained's OST.

Under the bridge by RHCP. I am sure everyone of you has heard this song.

By the sword by Slash. Well we are covering this in acoustic. More like the Myles Kennedy one and not the Stockdale one.

Stop being an idiot before your exams!

How all of us behave like complete idiots before our exams.

Pre-Examination Rant:

Second in-semester exams start day after tomorrow. We've got Algorithms and Database Managements systems on the first day. I can count the number of lectures of DBMS I have attended on the fingers of my hands, one hand, even if I were suffering from Oligodactyly . I really find it uninspiring and have sympathies for the person who has to handle databases when he graduates. I don't want to be that person.

Its too much theory and blah blah. I am probably wrong and am sure DBMS is a very important subject, but I just don't get inspired by it. I have to start studying it. Probably after this post.


I had a lot of tiny epiphanies today, Um usual pre-examination behavior. Even the beginning of this blog was through one of these mini epiphanies.

Anyway,
I hate something about examinations a lot. No, not about the system or anything. It's about how most of us behave in the few days before exams.

We dedicate few days before examination to studying. Just studying. It may be ten days for few or a maybe a week. These days suck. It's like the only thing that you think you are supposed to do in these few days is to study. And if you are not studying you better be sleeping or eating.

If I look at my complete day in which I was supposedly studying and denying myself of any recreation, I hardly studied. Then what did I do? Nada. Void. Nothing. Neither is my studying proportional to the time I invest in it nor do I permit myself in doing anything else. If I want to take a break, I take a nap. Wake up in cold sweat and rush back to my desk to make up for the extended sleep.

This is completely stupid. Stupid Stupid Stupid.

Shouldn't I just study properly for some part of the day and do something else in the remaining. No. Rather take the small amount of learning and distribute it throughout the day so in the end half of it doesn't make sense and there is hardly any retention. Argh. Who are you trying to fool?! You are just being stupid! You keep checking your Facebook, Twitter, Webmail and Gmail. You keep cycling through them. You read random articles. You strike up a conversation with friends you've not talked to in a long time.

Hey!
Long time!? How have you been?!

And then you don't even look for a reply. You don't give a fuck. You are busy reading comments on Feline videos on Youtube. You think how can everyone be so easily distracted? Oh and in between all this you read a line or two. Pretend you are studying. You are just killing time and waiting for the day to end. Waiting for the exams to end.

Dude, I spent the whole day studying! The course is just too large!

Can we just be a little smart and not waste 10 or 7 days before every exam pretending?! We anyway pretend a lot in our lives. Leave this out please. Don't pretend to study just because everybody is studying the whole day! It is not sacrilegious to do something else than studying before exams. There is no police.

Don't be a sheep!

Source:  Fluent in Spanish

But it is really funny, how I am so touchy and feeling so much about productivity just right before my examinations. Because after it ends, I'll turn a deaf ear to all such pleas in my stupid head. I'll be completely vella. I'll be in the state of doing nothing at all and wasting time till the dates for the next examination are announced.

"Vellapanti is a series of endless actions having the sole aim to kill time and doing chutiyapa at the same time"
Source: UrbanDictionary

True. We miss something when it's denied.

On an unrelated note. Only know you love her when you Let Her Go. Awesome song. Check it out. One of my favorite voices! The band is called Passenger.

 

PS. I have been tampering with the blog layout throughout the day and finally decided upon the sidebar thingy, which you see on the side. Duh. Tell me what you think of it? Please? I just can't decide.

Also please subscribe and comment :) Hover to the right of the screen. 

Everybody is not subscribing. Don't be a sheep.

How college students took group study to a whole new level !

Students of Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) took group study to an entire new level during one of their recent in semester examinations.

Students were given a random set of questions by the professor and were supposed to find their answers and treat them as the syllabus of the upcoming examination. Everyone was completely clueless. It was all messed up and last minute panic had already kicked in for those who gave a damn.

But necessity is the mother of Jugaad. 

One of the students made a document on Google Doc and make it public and editable by everyone. He put all the questions on it and wrote a tiny foreword telling people to fill in answers and links. All questions which were in more probability of being asked in the examination were asked to be +1'ed.

Initially the doc wasn't filled up completely but as the night before the exam began, the doc was being viewed by as many as 70 people and most of them were editing and adding answers.

It was really wonderful seeing such massive collaboration. The document was the single source of information for many of the clueless students.

There were at times when 50 people were editing at the same time and Google didn't allow any further editors on the document. But all of us could read it anyway.

But it was not that smooth and simple. There were many cases of people writing complete bull shit and going completely off topic taking advantage of their anonymity. But any crap written was removed very quickly by other more serious editors. A sense of community.

There were also instances in which people selected the whole text and deleted it and thereby sending many students in panic and giving them tiny heart attacks. These instances increased as soon dawn was breaking, and so were people's hopes about the exam. But thank god for revision history, peace was instilled quickly.

In all, its an wonderful example of who technology can be used for mass collaboration.
Everyone has the same technology, its just about how you use it and make the most of it.

A video about massive collaboration which really amused me in my freshmen year. Its an must watch for everybody. Creativity is endless.

Madonna's 4 minutes and Arduino Board.

Note: Non senti post. Just a bit technical. Yes, I am not crying and brooding all the time.

An assembled serial Arduino. (Photo by Nicholas Zambetti)

“Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

Yeah, uh huh

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

I only got 4 minutes to save the world”

Don’t judge me. Don't go away. This post is not about that song. Play it for added effect while reading.

World ends in 4 minutes 15 seconds.

Yes, it is the end. Everything gets over. Reset. You have to start from scratch every 4 minutes 15 seconds.

At least in Arduino world. This happened in the EHD ( Embedded Hardware Design ) lab. We were supposed to work on Arduino boards and implement a clock which displays the time. We also had to add an alarm.

The method we followed was to have a variable called seconds, which stores duh seconds. We added a delay of 1 seconds before incrementing it.

seconds = 0

delay(1000)

seconds = seconds + 1

We had to write the time every time into EEPROM so that the clock can continue even after a reset.

EEPROM.write(address, seconds)

In the start of each loop we read the seconds from the EEPROM, displayed it, added a delay, incremented, wrote in the EEPROM and continued the same cycle all over again.

The clock was working was properly our at least it seemed to. But stumbled upon something really weird though.

When the clock was running,

4 : 11

4 : 12

4 : 13

4 : 14

4 : 15

0 :  0

0 :  1

0 :  2

WHAT?! The world came crashing. Nothing made sense. Well, okay. Nothing that melodramatic.

But me and Zubin ( lab partner) were confused. There was nothing in the code that could reset the seconds to zero. Why only after 4:15? The code was simple enough to have any such hidden errors.

We tried again, and the same thing happened. We were reset to the beginning of time as soon as we hit 4:15.

But we were a little confused and then it finally hit us.

Each address on the EEPROM is byte sized and hence can only save numbers from 0 to 255. As our design solely relied on one variable (seconds) we were facing the problem.

4 : 15 means 4* 60 + 15 seconds, ie 255.

As soon as the time reached 4 : 16, it meant 256 seconds. But we couldn’t write 256 into the EEPROM, hence 0 was getting written.  Which meant the next read only fetched 0 seconds.

It was such an eureka moment for us. We were literally excited and beaming. 

We engineers, little byte sized things make us so happy.

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Twitter: @NisarHogaya

I am scared.

I am scared. 

Recently I decided to do something. It is a grand plan. Everything about the plan is appealing. So yes, planning part is done. Finally the confirmation came from the other side and the plan started materializing.

I'll tell you what the plan is soon, even though many people already know it. I think I can tell you soon because I can finally see it as happening.
Keep your goals to yourself. This is one the best things I have learned. Check this TED talk without fail.

It started becoming real. And I got scared. I am really scared. But no one really gets it. I shared my feelings with few, but all they have is how wonderful it would be when I do it. How amazing it would be, and how everything will be okay in the end.I really appreciate it. But it really doesn't work that way. I know they are trying to help, and I do look for comforting words at times, but the ones I get are not the ones I want. Maybe words won't help. Maybe someone should just sit besides me and accept the fact that the plan is scary. No overly optimistic words. Someone who just accepts it that i am scared and sits in silent solidarity with me for some while. At least we would be on the same page. Then 'we' will know it'll be alright.

 There is this constant pain in the back of my head. I am tensed. There are even moments when I think of giving up. Letting go of the plan. Telling myself that thinking of the plan was good enough, I don't really need to do it. 

This is not the first time that this has happened. It happens many times. Whenever I plan to do something which will be really great. Something which is not ordinary I get scared and the prospect of going by everyday routine is appealing and somehow warm. 
I get this feeling before playing important football matches. I clearly remember this before the semi-final against PDPU during Concours'12. I was scared. But it wasn't the fear of losing. It was something different. 

It was then that this quote by Marianne Williamson (paraphrased in Coach Carter) finally made sense to me. Every word of it. 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others"

Please check the Zen Pencil version of it.

I guess i have a similar fear right now. Actually, exactly this. 

That football match was the best game I had ever played till now. That feeling was amazing. We went ahead and won the finals too.


Our comfort zones, are damn too comforting. The fear of unknown is really getting at me. But I think this trip is all about getting over it. And once I am done with it, the feeling would be something similar.

On letters and memories.

Hello :)

The only thing I've done today is watched two episodes of Seinfeld and sleep. Seriously, nothing else.

But I like how I have this urgency to write something before midnight, and I have only 2 hours. The motive behind starting the blog is working very well.


On letters and memories,

Or cheating your way to being remembered. Haha.

Letters.
I have always been fascinated by hand written letters. Always. Though i never got many. I've told this to people who are close to me before. I am in general very passionate about the written word. How everything written is permanent and stays. How anyone could write, and how everyone is a writer. You just have to write what you think, how difficult can it be? It's probably those pseudo-intellectual writers who keep using fancy words and metaphors which are really not needed, that scare away people from writing. 

You just have to write what you think. Its like listening to your mind, and just jotting it down. I will save this for another post, on why i love writing so much and why everyone should write. 

Today it is about letters.
 Recently, i have received and written a lot of notes and letters. But most of them are farewell notes and goodbye letters. They are neatly stacked in my drawer of little things i have saved up from the starting of college. Little things, from clips to an Orange from first semester which has now solidified to an extent that it can be used as a ball. It leaves a tangy smell on you after you've played with it for a while. I love collecting such pieces which will trigger back memories many years down the line. Yes, in a way i love staying in the past. In a romantic sort of way. I am always looking for souvenirs of moments and nights. I even remember saving my first parchi when i was caught by the traffic policeman for driving late night. To think of it now, it makes me remember everything about the day and the pillion.   

I remember reading, "Don't have time to think?" . It is a collection of letters exchanged between Richard Feynman and the people around him. I was really fascinated. You actually get an insight into how these people think. With so much clarity and rationality. The conversations are so pure with real emotions, with words that do justice to the emotions. Unlike conversations nowadays, conversations are short, of not much importance. They don't leave a mark on you. Years down the line, i don't think I am going to remember many conversations i had with people which are close to me. Conversations online are sick and invaded by cute looking parasites like :P's . Their population in each conversation is alarming. Yellow everywhere. I even use them instead of full-stops. Our vocab is binary, with 'faad', 'rad' or 'epic' used for anything good and 'sad' used for anything bad. Seriously. We've oversimplified the beauty of emotions so cheaply.

I really wish i end up gathering a lot more letters by the end of my college life. But i just cannot wish for them and wait. I've decided to write letters, at least one, to people whom i think i was unjust with, people who i think deserved better and people who mean so much to me but don't know about it. Hand written and to be posted by mail. Its a forceful way of making sure you are remembered down the line. 

Well, i came across this interesting Ted back which inspired me to write today's blog post.
They explain it in a better way. Please watch both of them.

She has an interesting point. When she says that she holds the letter which once his father touched. It was sort of a connection. As i said, letters are ways of explicitly making sure that you will be remembered by the person who means a lot to you. You'll always know, whatever ups and downs you had with them, this letter and everything said in it , will always stay.

This one particularly being my favorite. 

I just love what she is doing. Imagine waking up one day with a bunch of letters about you from people you had no idea existed. She operates a site. So if you sign up , they tell you the next time they are writing letters for someone, and you can join in and write something as well. Imagine, making somebody's day special somewhere across the world.

Here is the link to it.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/

Do check the website out. She has written some amazing letters.

For example this, i guess everyone in college should read.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/2011/12/07/put-down-the-textbook-and-read-this-a-love-letter-for-the-college-students/

So I have added two things to my bucketlist today,

• Write a love letter to  a stranger
• Write a letter to someone I know

Sorry for the hurried up post, I just made it on time. I haven't even proofread. Only 5 minutes to go. 

Dear reader,

Please subscribe and comment or better, 
write me a letter and i'll write back :)

B - 213,

hall of residence men DA-IICT, near indroda circle Gandhinagar, 

Gujarat 382007

(I am not sure if this is creepy, But what the hell?)

Yours,
Nisar.

Ps. I could have written a lot more. But can't break the rules. Maybe a follow up post.

On Solitude. Do I really need anyone?

On Solitude, and can I really be alone?

I have always been up for solitude. I have dinners in college at odd timings. I try to avoid rush. I always think that If I need anyone it is myself. Don’t get me wrong. I have some really close friends which I won’t trade for anything. But there is no exclusivity with anyone. I think, I can be the best bestfriend I can ever have.  And it works out too. You have books too, you can always escape there. Escaping seems to be something I have become really good at. If I have a problem, I don’t think about it. I try to ignore it as much as I can. I hate confrontations. I am not good at conversing with people in groups. I am only comfortable with one on one conversation.

So anyway, before this becomes more random. Can you really ever be alone and be happy? You can do away with it most of the time. But its only when you a hit a low you realize. I panic when I hit a low. I bash out at people. I start expecting a lot from people suddenly. I am unfair to them. At these moments, I realize who is really close to me, even though usually I’ll say nobody. But there are people who come to my mind. People who I want to talk with right now, I want them to be there for me. Now, its really unfair to them. I can’t expect them to be there on a single day, and not be there for major part. It is like I am using them, just to get away with my ephemeral misery. Some are unavailable at that time, some get irritated by sudden expectations from them, because usually I am not there to return the favor.  So I get more frustrated. I end up sending messages to people that I shouldn’t.  I open closets and find skeletons, and end up spending a lot of time with them. I like spending time with them. But the more I stay, the more messed up I get.  So , nobody comforts me enough to pull me out of my misery. It dies down. I end up listening to some music, reading and writing. This writing is a result of that.

But then again, it is me who is helping me while I am writing this.  I can always rely on myself. There are people I look for help, and occasionally there are a few who always want to help. And sometimes I just want to know if they want to help. I like to see them try, and know that they are there for me.  But there is none on whom I can rely on more than I can rely on myself. Or probably, I haven’t met that one yet. But there’ll always be me. And writing, ofcourse. 

Ps. Please comment here. You could always tell me personally, but here it will stay forever.