Random

It’s funny how I got a taste of the well-known phrase ‘Don’t Judge a Book by it’s Cover‘.. in it’s literal sense; rather than what it actually has to convey about not assuming a person’s capabilities from his initial outwardly impressions.

So thanks to the sudden addiction towards going haywire in a bookstore to dig out books of any random genre, and dragging them home to archive them with the rest, I was at it again last month when I came across this huge paradise of books, branded as Landmark at the Infinity Mall in Mumbai. I came across Chetan Bhagat’s recent release, ‘The 3 mistakes of my Life‘; and from all the launch parties and hype for the book, the reviews seeming pretty convincing to run out and grab a copy, I thought of having a go at this young Indian author’s novels; for a change from all the Enid Blyton fictions and autobiographies of random Indian personalities.

The first copy of the book that I caught hold of, the only one I could find at that shelf, looked pretty enough, with this unique fresh odour that released upon flipping the pages. But out of my concern towards the ‘prettiness’, I dropped back the book since there was this glue’ish sort of little spot on the binded edge. Towards the other shelves I found a couple of more copies of the same, and yet again I was more particular towards the cover rather than what’s inside; I finally agreed on the 3rd copy that I caught hold of, and shoved it to the cart.

Even after more than 3 weeks of reading at snail-speed, I never realised those blank pages which I noticed earlier, were not extras, but were indeed ‘missing‘ pages off the book. This came to light when my mom jumped in the quest to finish the book, having completed the entire book in just a couple of days; as compared to me still lagging behind at 2/3rd of the book still pending.

Upon proceeding towards Chapter 9, quite far ahead of me, she discovered there were around 16 pages missing from the 9th to the 11th Chapter in an alternate sequence. Yes! That’s when I realised I should have probably accepted the first copy back at the store then and there without wandering around for a ‘prettier’ one. My mom however finished off the book ignoring the missing blocks in the story.

Now the only solution is to either scan off the missing pages from a friend’s copy (no use since no one’s got any yet), or leech the ebook version off the web and print out the pages. Still hunting down for the latter.. no results yet. =(

I guess I could call this one of my mistakes in life? Let’s see the other 2 come along the way until I get around reading to the end.

Offline for 2 months..?
Reason? “Had a tough time struggling my space board with the INSAT-1C I collided with whilst playing around in the Medieval ages“.

Did that seem all nonsensical to you? Then READ ON…
—————————————————————-

Past 2 minutes, oops.. I mean 2 months of an Offline status around instant messengers and social networks did get a ton of worried messages piled up that went ‘Where are you?’ or astonied ones like ‘Nish is offline?!’.

NO! Technically I may have been offline from the virtual hangouts, the period extending upto 2 months, but I was neither off nor is the period correct anywhere near it.

April 5 was the day, after a fine conversation with a few contacts on Orkut, I decided to take some time off the online routines and get some fresh air out space-surfing around Xeus.

Rolling on to half an Mb/sec.

May 4th

Posted by Nishant in Random

2 comments

512 Kbps Unlimited (Night – 10 hrs/day : 22hrs – 08hrs)

And.. finally! True broadband GETTO DAZE!! My humble (o’rly?) ISP, Sify Broadband (India) has just recently launched some new broadband packages in their plans; the numero uno that stands out the most is the pack U25N, that promises to deliver blazing speeds (for us Indians) of 512Kbps with Unlimited data transfer between 22:00hrs to 08:00hrs IST, and thereafter, a decent speed (in today’s Indian broadband scene..) of 256Kbps Unlimited for the rest of the day i.e. 08:00hrs to 22:00hrs.

Having just renewed my broadband account with the same, it seriously feels exciting to have a .5mbps connection. atleast for the night, which is legally owned (*coughs @ previous 6mbps connection 0wnages with previous ‘hax0red’ ISP ). Although the price of the plan, which may seem fair in today’s broadband scene at (Sify price) Rs. 1299/- per month; it ultimately gets you a hole in your pocket when it arrives through your CTO (Local Sify/Cable TV Operator) which throw in their own so-called maintenance charges which sums upto Rs. 1550/- per month for me. This is because unlike other ISPs, Sify provides broadband through local cable operators because of some monopoly issues since the past few years, AFAIK.

Even though it may not seem as über as a constant 24/7 connection of 512kbps, but looking at broadband in India today, where the average surfer is more than satisfied with a 1Gb capped {insert_any_speed_here_as_it_doesnt_really_matter_since_capped_connections_PHAIL} Kbps line, and those ones a step ahead who cannot bear to watch their Internet pipes idle of any 24/7 mass-leeching torrents/movies/games and streaming online media, contented with a 128/256 UL plan; the U25N feels a level up. Also from the perspective of the comparison of the amount of hours you get in the so-called ‘Night’ as compared to day, even though it may feel as a bit too less, Sify generously defines a ‘night’ slot as the period from 10pm to 8am, as compared to some other (evil!) ISPs like MTNL/BSNL who have 2am to 8am defined as a ‘night’ as a part of their conspiracy into getting the average 7-8 hrs Zzz’ing person to stay upto 2am to start the leeching, and out of some misfortune due to the late bedtime, wake up a tad late post the 8am mark; thus brutally charging the person for the entire night’s data transfer.

Thus, a ‘Sify day’ lasts for 14 hrs, and a night for 10 hrs; that’s just a bit less than half a day that you’re going to enjoy the 512 glory if you rather not look at it from the darn_it’s_bedtime_for_me perspective.

And before I hit the [Publish] button and switch back to getting pampered by the new speeds, I’d like to conclude that inspite of the so-called ’super’ Download speed that it provides (64+ KB/s), it was yet too much of a letdown when I discovered online streaming sites like Youtube & Google Video still not attaining a smooth video playback, staggering with buffering screens, even if it’s for a second or two; for what I believe they are to be blamed, since downloading the same video would result in a faster rate than it streaming in their embedded players; [EDIT] the videos play smooth as ever, and buffer much in advance to allow you to seek ahead =)

And as you await for my next post in the distant future ;p.. here’s me signing off, and wishing hopefully the broadband scene in India gets even more better in the weeks to come.

Cleaning up..

Mar 22nd

Posted by Nishant in Random

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Howdy! Back after another long gap for posting around here, as always thanks to my laziness..

So these days being at home after some really hectic weeks at college, it’s quite likely that I’m going to get into completely weird and odd randomnesses again.. Though this time it was neat!

After months of archiving the Digit & Chip magazines (and plus a few other random tech mags bought along the way) , they still weren’t accessible as and when needed, thanks to once again.. yes, my laziness! heh.. So they needed to get organized chronologically in one place, unlike how they were spread across the cabinets in my room. Just like I managed to pile up the complementary Digit & Chip DVDs this week, it was now time to stack up the issues alongwith. So I just shoved everything off the cabinet that lies exactly on top of my rig (NiShPC 4.1) onto my bed (which laid there all thru the day as a complete mess..), and took a huge plastic bag to start /dev/null’ing the junk that’d been collected thru these months in that particular cabinet.

After the unnecessary matter was junked away, the issues were cuddled up into neat stacks (for each, Digit & Chip) that had everything chronologically set up. The other random magazines like PC World, PC Quest, Developer IQ, Linux for you, My Mobile, T3, .. were also piled up into one single stack (since I’m not a regular reader of the same and hence do not own every issue till date). Well now that it was done.. I randomly felt the urge to get the artistic side out of me, and do sumthing phun. So, stuck up some random right-sized Chip/PC Quest/Developer IQ cardboard covers up at the walls of the lower shelf, thus building up the charm of having a little archive library of tech magazines.

Next, the stacks were set up neatly in the shelf, alongwith the little mini booklets (Fastrack & Chip Plus) that come free alongwith them. There.. task completed. But no! There was still an urge to keep myself active from getting b0red. So the top shelf was filled in with all the books: novels, comics and other good ol’ books that were scattered around various directories around /home/nish/room3 ; and to throw in some creativity, printed out and stuck some cool labels that help to tag the book piles into easily searchable categories (thanks to navigation signboards at the supermarts, and travel instruction boards at highways for the random inspiration of these “labels” =P). Little arrows printed on the labels pointed towards the corresponding stacks. All this just added to the fun of getting everything organized together again, and get into the mood to sit back with a book sometime, which was an hobby that had been forgotten lately, due to the hands being kept busy on the keyboard at all times.

Click to view larger


And so ultimately this post turned out quite big, whereas I just hoped to post the neat photo of the end-result of the whole organization randomness. Anyways do comment on the set up, and suggestions are welcome as always.

P.S.: For those lazy readers out there with a similar mess in their rooms, do try cleaning up sometime ;p… it’s fun; even more if you throw in your creativity and make it enjoyable.

NiSh Birthday – Year 20 – How it went along..

Nov 25th

Posted by Nishant in Featured

1 comment

NiSh Birthday – Year 20 – How it went along..

*burrrp*.. That’s what you get when you end up your birthday dinner @ 2am in the morning.. LOL..
So, let’s start the birthday post right from the Birthday Eve.. The phone started ringing right up from ~23.15* for early birthday wishes.. next call up at 23:40 from a dear friend who was all ‘Ab tum bees saal ke ho gaye toh hum bachchon ko bhuul jaaoge isliye jaldi phone kiya‘ (Since you’re 20 yrs old now you may forget us kids so called you up early)… And I was all.. WTF.. Let that 2-digit number spelt T-W-E-N-T-Y be BANNEDTH Now!! I’m Still in my Sweet 16 age ^_^

And the call went up until 00:06 when he finally WiShed me A very Happy Birthday.. .. Pretty smart how people actually call you up early just to avoid a Waiting tone after midnight.. Which was exactly the situation after the 00 hrs onwards.. with some friends talking on and on, not realising there are some other dear ones waiting in the call queue.. And to those who failed to connect to me in such a case, my apologies, but you could have tried again later

Txt-message greeting fails in cases where you pull out your Saved msgs box and randomly shove a Birthday sms to your friend; not realizing it’s quite a commonly forwarded one.. who knows maybe that same friend may have forwarded it to you.. and you back to him.. -_-; Although I still appreciate all those who did greet me online via IMs, Scraps, Emails, or SMSes.. But those who could manage to call and talk to me personally, that’s the best gift I believe I could’ve got, since voice is one thing that reaches out from your heart direct to the other person and conveys your wishes better. =)

Rise n’ shine.. It’s THE Day.. the Sun’s up.. but NiSh isn’t.. ? Finally I wake up with.. a headache and nerve pains? Gah.. Once again probably left the phone radio headset playing in my ear all night… Ouch.. So anyways, I get the first morning call from my Aunt.. and later on some more to follow, and constant greetings getting scrapped on Orkut all day as usual. So I dress up in some neat new clothes with a red & light blue combination… and.. sit around.. and just sit around some more… taking a few birthday day snaps.. and sit around some more..? Ofcourse, how dull can your birthday morning get when you have no college to attend (not for the lectures sake tho ) resulting in no friends to meet and wish you personally, no going out and giving them a treat… absolutely nothing! And since Laziness ownz over me, I do not wander out the door until there’s a genuine reason for it.. So I just sit some more.. And that headache really gets bad..

Lunch time around, and I have some really good dishes waiting for me.. Thanks to my sweet loving mom who actually went through the trouble of cooking up a special Lunch (not forgetting a sweet dish ) inspite of having office to attend early morning.. *cuddles* ^^ And later, I just fall off to bed.. Yes! Bed! I never knew I’d actually have a nap on a birthday.. or even look at my lousy lazy messed up bed.. if it wasn’t for that headache and sickness sort of feeling that started to get worst..

***Zzzz… And it’s late evening already? Somehow did manage to wake up, and all I had to do.. is wait for my mom to get back from office.. and even tho it was time already, she still wasn’t home.. I guess she was shopping around for me.. ….. So let’s quickly speed up the whole waiting part.. which was really long, and get to the celebration! Well before which, I did have a few more phone calls and smses (plus Orkut scrapping to glory continues), with everyone just adamant to point out that it was my ‘TWENTY’th Birthday.. damn 20 is Forbidden!! Inverse use of 20 is still allowed tho (as in 02 yrs ) Some went even ahead to boldly state ‘congrats for beginning 21st year..’ ….

Moving on to the celebration again, it’s around 22:00hrs, and I get shoved out.. with a scrumptious lil’ cake in front of me, with _Nishant_ scribbled over it with cream.. so as always I first need to get the NISH part partitioned from the ANT.. thus leaving the NISH piece only for the NiSh

And the cake cutting follows with my dear mom and bro humming the Happy Birthday tune for me.. ^^ and I’m gifted with some self-baked chocolate cookies by my brother… and a Chrono watch by my mom .. who does also say she was supposed to get me a better gift , but due to lack of time cudn’t.. so I may have to wait.. (and later leaked by my brother that it was supposed to be an iPod.. Eww.. Apple..). The chocolate cookies was something that my brother had been trying to bake all day for me.. (sweet ^^).. and taking a bite of which did feel a lil’ bit odd.. and the reason was cuz.. my mom realised he had used Salted cashews instead of the normal ones.. hence resulting in somewhat Salted chocolate cookies… Altho my dog enjoyed them (LOL).. robbing away one after the another from the dish whilst no one was at watch.

Beverages included the usual soft drinks and some Fruit sodas.. which did add up to my sickness, but can’t deny on your birthday …. And finally.. whilst it was time for dinner, the sickness started to show up even more, and I literally had a nice short nap near the oven.. which was busy heating up the pizzas my mom was upto, at 1 in the morning.. Lol.. And the rest.. *burrp* is where this post began with.

The things I did miss this year was as written above, having no college so no meeting up with friends and givin’ them a good enough treat , as well as the online celebration that I had previous year on IRC and the forums. [Check it out]

And before I forget to mention, I’d like to specially thank that special guy, my dear close friend and brother online, who gifted me a domain on my birthday [www.nishmudkip.com].. As a hint, it’s the guy mentioned above who first used the forbidden number.. 20.. figure him out

—- And sooo… here ends my awfully X-tra large post.. which rather turned out into an Essay instead… describing all about the Lazy, somewhat boring, yet a fun-filled Birthday… in the start of the 21st Year of the NiSh.

La Fin-

Your comments are appreciated, click the [Reply] button below.

*All times mentioned here are in IST (GMT +5.30) unless specified NSTw (NiSh Standard Time winter = IST +/- 18hrs).

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