Budget '06 & IIIT

It was an unexpectedly mediocre and play-it-safe budget from an exceptional FM yesterday. So how does the Union Budget 2006-07 affect a IIITian? -- Not much. Owing to the coming elections in several states, the FM didn't break much ice.

The levy of 8% excise duty on packaged software has stumped the IT industry. Customized software downloaded from the internet, however, are exempt from this tax. The budget was primarily silent on reforms (reforms in power, labour were expected). Even as IIIT proposes to ban cars in campus, small cars are slated to get cheaper by Rs 13000-25000 due to a cut in excise duty. Two-wheelers remain unaffected. For studs intending to buy PCs, (P Chidambaram) PC doesn't have good news. By levying a 12% excise duty, he's made desktops and laptops costlier. Next time you step into a bank to get a demand draft or remit money, be prepared to pay a bit more. Custom duty on MP3 players has been reduced to 5% (from 15%).
Key points:

• Desktops, laptops to cost more
  
• MP3 players to get cheaper
• Banks' Service tax increased
  

Overall, a budget short of anything major.

Competition has already begun

Attention students. Campus Buzz brings for you something really new and exciting. From the following week onwards, certain announcements would be made on this weblog. To start off with - each week, there'll be a winner for the 'Best Post of the Week'. There may be awards for the same, so you might want to take it seriously. And the announcements would be made on any random day of the week.

With so many IIIT students maintaining blogs these days, the competition would definitely be tough. But nevertheless, great competitions bring great achievements. The basis on which the post wins would be posted along with the declaration of the result. With the kind of response that we receive for the 'best post of the week' award, other things might start off very soon. So keep writing and keep reading. Our eyes are watching you and your weblogs.

NOTE: IIIT Alumni wouldn't be counted for this competition. Something might come up for them in recent future.

Sleeping faculty

Amongst many decisions made at the beginning of the current session - 2005-2006, one of the most important decisions made was related to placements' postponement. The biggest (only?) reason being - "Students do not work after getting placed in companies" and thus their FYPs get affected. After having fought a number of times, final year students finally had to kneel down at the faculty's decision.

But since then, was faculty really serious about the Final Year Projects? Agreed that students are no more to be spoon-fed and that they need to be sincere at work themselves, but that doesn't set the professors free from their responsibilities.

- Reports that were supposed to have been signed by the project guide were not even showed to them as phases passed.
- All the viva deadlines got postponed beginning right from the first one.
- Absence of some of the panel members at the time of viva.
- Disinterest of some faculty members during presentations
- While some panel members sleep during presentations, some others utilize the time for their own work that could be done in parallel.

So, dear Proffs, please take FYPs a little more seriously.

(Contributed by a final-year student)

UG2k2 earns another victory

In continuation to UG2k2's achievements , these days we have results (MBA/PHDs/Placements/Scholarships) awaited by most of the students of the current final year. These results, if positive, would not only make one happy, they would also decide upon one's upcoming future.

With the first MBA result out, we have Mr. Ravi Shankar to have gotten selected in Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) which is ranked amongst one of the top 10 MBA colleges of India. Hope to have more victories coming up from this batch.

Do we have faculty peeping in?

The tenth comment on this post seems to have been contributed by one of our faculty members. Not that none of the students are idealistic enough to think that way, but they definitely wouldn't make an effort to write it. Well, this analysis is done keeping exceptions aside. This person (exception) is not only idealistic, he even knows how to present his views and fight for them when required.

In real sense, that comment should be taken on as a challenge by each and every IIITian in here. Are we in any way less intellectual than those IITians who grab the high positions everywhere? No, we are not and we definitely need to prove that. Infact we are already on the required track with recent victories such as this on the list. Hoping for more such success stories to come up in recent future.

Bad luck with FYP Panels

It has been reported by our sources that Prof Shatrunjay Rawat is recently included in one of the current FYP panels. And that panel already seems to be the strictest of all with Dr. Jawahar, Dr. Jayanthi, Dr. Vishal Garg and Dr. Venkaiaha. Unexpectedly, Dr. Vishal Garg seems to be the toughest because of his willingness to see demos now and then and Dr. Jayanthi seems to be the most lenient among them. Not that Prof Shatrunjay Rawat is really strict but students don't wish to take any chances towards the end of their BTech and are hence afraid. Who knows, may be his fear makes those students serious at work.

Barged In

Just about 15 mins back, about a dozen cars carrying more than 50 college studs from Vasavi, barged into the campus, honking their way towards the main building. They were campaigning for their festival, Euphoria. A single security guard is still visible trying to drive them out. Not only did they 50-or-so have a jolly nice ride racing around in the campus, they threw pamphlets, pasted them on the walls, and tried to enter the main building. A total security breakthrough.
Some quick questions:

• How did they get into the campus in the first place? Where's the main-gate security?
• Do the new security rules apply only to us?
• Do we have white walls just so that a random crowd can post on them?
  

The Intelligence of AI Class - 2

Continuing further on this, Mr SP Kishore even mentioned that only students at IITs and IISc have the ability to study on their own, while on the other hand, IIIT students need to be taught (spoonfed?). The whole class started booing and shouting in disagreement.

Professors with such attitude aren't fit for the institute at all. They may be the brightest of all but then they do not believe in the capabilities of students and that's just not acceptable. It not only lowers the morale of students, but even spoils the faculty-students relationship. Mr SP Kishore got to apologize or he probably wouldn't be respected by any IIITian.

Anyone around with a good rapport with Mr. SP Kishore, is requested to forward him a link to this post. These things just can't be forgotten.

Reiterating Hostel Rules

Of late, we have got a number of mails from Mr BLN citing Hostel Rules. Bold ugly font and a paragraph of quote unquote is sent every now and then, to which all of us seem to echo: WTH, do you think anyone actually reads the hostel rules? But he never fails to mention the rule number, clause number, etc, which emphasizes that thank God there's at least one person, our caretaker, who has not only read the hostel rules but actually seems to have it by-heart. As a matter of general curiosity, if you are left wondering where the Hostel rules are, they're here.

The Intelligence of AI class

Even before Artificial Intelligence is yet to make its mark, the AI students have mastered a few tricks. So when Dr Bipin, one of AI profs, offered that the not-interested people in AI can honorably leave after attendance, about 50% of the class left. And when it came Dr Pudi's (another of AI profs) turn, the ritual was repeated. This has been repeating since then; 50% of the class empties to leave only the remaining 50% interested ones. However, there was a twist when S Kishore, a research exchange stud from CMU, another of AI's teachers, denied the students this right, mentioning that he'd been to IIT's & IISc's but this kind of a (intelligent) behavior was not to be seen.

Time Management?

IIIT's IEEE Student Branch organized a talk on 'Time Management' by Dr. Kamal, Professor IIIT on 27th February'06. Though the talk was supposed to deal with managing time, the organizers didn't really manage their own time really well. Surprizingly, there were enough audience at the scheduled time. But the whole event itself got delayed by about half an hour. Though the delay's not that bad for a normal event, it definitely didn't create a good impression for a talk on 'Time Management'.

Nevertheless, the talk came out to be really helpful from the perspective of a IIIT student. The presentation infact had its complete focus on a time-table of a typical engineering student. Students have been given certain handouts which could act as supplements for managing their time. Those handouts are certain generalized forms for managing one's time and has been designed by MIT.

IEEE Branch has been asked to get those forms scanned and put them up on the intranet for students' usage. Let's see if the students' branch really works over it.

IEEE Student Branch at IIIT Hyderabad

There's an IEEE Student Branch at IIIT Hyderabad which really seems to work unlike many other student bodies/clubs at IIIT. Remember the stars' watching session conducted last year at the main building's terrace? Then today's talk on 'Time Management' by Dr. Kamal. Though the number of such sessions and events aren't that high, they're still there. With new panel selected for this branch with Dr. Bipin Indrukhya as the students' mentor, they plan to organize some really exciting events this semester. Following are some of the current suggestions:

- A visit to Sri Harikota -- India's premium launch site [A visit to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) could be another option]
- Socializing events like rock climbing [It's heard that Golconda fort trip organized 3 years earlier was a great success]
- Workshops on industry relevant topics in association with industries like M$ and Oracle
- Workshops on AJAX, Flash, film making (producing our own IIIT themed video) [The aim is to send students back with a sense of certain practical achievement]
- A Bar camp
- Guest lectures on topics like Web 2.0, quantum computing, grid computing and some others [as suggested by students]

IEEE Student Branch invites serious suggestions on ieee-sb AT students DOT iiit DOT ac DOT in . So, feel free to mail them. You might get some of your wishes fulfilled through the events that they organize.

Wake up CVIT

Kiran writes a post on animations which in the end states something that CVIT, IIIT Hyderabad might want to take up as a challenge.

Not just the animation industry, he even talks about the 'low' risk-taking ability in Indian IT entrepreneurs for which he details out his small interaction with the vice-presidents of TCS, Infosys, Satyam and Wipro. He happened to get that unique opportunity at ISB.

Time flies @ one sec per sec

Time Management is all about setting priorities for one's tasks and planning one's work. At some point or the other, we all realize the importance of time management (esp exam-time). Today, IIIT students get an opportunity to listen to the views of Dr. Kamal. Haven't you seen that despite all the classes, research activities, administration, Dr Kamal still finds enough time to play cricket in the field with his son?

IIIT's IEEE student branch takes an initiative towards organizing the complete event, starting off with Dr. Kamal's talk followed by an interactive session on interesting topics such as Bar Camp . It is said that a similar talk on Time Management that was held 3 years ago in 2003 created a lot of buzz on IIIT campus.

You are writing the story of your life, one moment at a time. And unless you have a time machine, you cannot get back the lost seconds. You can wait until a time machine really gets invented, or else catch this talk today in Seminar Hall 2 (Above Motorola School) at 6:00 PM sharp.

Formula of a pay-package

@nks proposes a hilarious equation for determining one's pay package as a function of CGPA, knowledge, personality, luck and time.
    Package = f(CGPA, knowledge, personality) + g(CGPA, luck, time) + c

That one's job profile is not a direct, linear function of one's CGPA is conspicuously visible from the B.Tech Placements Stats. It's thoughtful, nevertheless, to wonder what more factors might be responsible. What about the nature of these functions: Are f & g linear/non-linear, causal/non-causal,..? Or could it be governed by Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle?

On Campus Security

CLC sent a  l o n g mail describing the proposed changes for improving the Security in Campus. Here's the summary:

• Entry and exit of people, goods and vehicles will be tracked.
• Surprise spot checks for ID cards (People should carry ID cards)
• OBH to Basketball court road be made "No motor vehicles" zone
• Park vehicles at behind-NBH parking area only
  
• Students cannot keep cars
  

Alarmed by the IISc incident, tracking of entry & exit is a welcome and acceptable security measure. Same with spot ID card checks.
However, "No motor vehicles zone" and "No cars" appear cranky. Are cars no more than mere luxury? Does abandoning cars promote simplistic living? Will faculty set an example by abandoning cars? Shouldn't one have the freedom to choose a flamboyant living? Should coolies be hired to carry heavy objects (computers, etc) to the OBH?

If you have the above (or more) questions and suggestions, make sure you write them down to the CLC on or before 2nd March, or else be prepared to abandon the above luxuries.

Ctrl_D tops at TechKriti

Ctrl_D, IIIT's latest programming sensation, has topped in the On the Spot Programming Contest held yesterday (25th) at IITK's TechKriti '06. The team consisted of 3 sophomores: Sandeep Kumar, Ankur Jaiswal and Supreeth Achar. Not very long ago, this same team had stood 6th in IIT-Kgp's BitWise '06.
Awesome job guys -- you rock!

Results and post-match talk : ug3 vs ug1

Aeons ago, there was a post condemning the fitness levels of the IIITians

Today the people who battled it out for victory in a spiral zone of a different kind (CRICKET) proved me wrong :O

Congrats to the ug3 cricketers for their 14 run victory over the first year students.But that doesn't take the credit away from the first years either.They fought .... and boy!They fought hard.But they did succumb under pressure.After all!Chasing under a scorching sun isn't that easy.

Today was a day when there were lots of monkey antics (albeit controlled ones)and athletic stuff on the field.So here we have guys who can whole-heartedly give it all ...both physically and mentally for their respective batches :)

BRIEF SCORE CARD :
(ug3 loses the toss and are put in to bat :)

ug3 :128 all out in 19 overs(Sai Praveen 37 ; Harsha 13;Ketan 13)
bt
ug1: 114 all out in 18th over(Rohit 24;Mahavir 18)

Wardens or Agents

When people go over to the hostel wardens regarding requests like allowing them to keep things in their rooms that are not otherwise allowed, what do you expect the warden to do? Scold and shout right. That is exactly what he did when Mr. Dharmeet , a first year student went over to him seeking permission to keep a refrigerator in his room. For those who don't know, that student is suffering from a high degree of diabetes and needs to keep syringes and other medicines in his room under low temperature and hence came the need of a refrigerator.

But, did those scoldings continue for long? Unexpectedly, no. Things soon turned polite with questions like - "Do you want to buy one at cheap rates?" ; "When do you plan to buy?" ; "Can I get you one from my friend? It'll be really economical". Now such things make one doubtful about the fact that whether these caring wardens are some kind of marketing agents too. And if they are, then is it really worth buying things through them? If we do buy, would they be more helpful towards us (the buyers or the customers) in future?

EXoR starts today

Excitement of Research (EXoR), a two-day interactive event preceding R&D Showcase by a week, starts today. The audience will be a few top 3rd yr engineering students from most of the 236 odd engineering colleges in AP. There's a limit of at most 2 student from each of CSE & ECE dept. of a college. The aim of EXoR is to introduce the audience to the idea of research, to show them that research is not all rocket-science (i.e. something to fear). Apart from national service, IIIT's innate interest in organizing EXoR every year (this being the 3rd time) could be to attract students for research.

The program includes talks on The Story behind Simputer by Dr. Swami Manohar, CEO, PicoPeta Simputer Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore and Nanotechnology and its Relevance to India by Lt Gen (Retd) Dr V. J. Sundaram Advisory, Micro & Nano Systems, National Design and Research Forum (NDRF), The Institution of Engineers India, Bangalore (PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Ex Director DRDL and Chairman IGMDP). There are about a dozen projects to be demonstrated, wherein students visit in groups and are allotted about 15 minutes of time. This includes 5 minutes of Q&A. However, they are known to ask some insanely obtuse questions, like: What is the programming language used? Why not use Java?

B.Tech placements stats

Gautam presents a nicely done statistics of this year's B.Tech placements and some analysis. Company-wise offer breakup (with package) as well as the breakup for each of 87 students is shown. Also displayed is the list of studs going for MS (at IIIT or outside).
Analysis:

• 43% studs have dream offers
  
• 18% have package > 5L
• 29% have dual-job offers.
  

Interestingly enough, everyone's CGPA too is displayed.

FSIS: Heighten Cultural Activities

"Heighten Cultural Activities" was the sing-song of today's FSIS which lasted about 2.5 hrs. Cultural Activities ought to be part-and-parcel of our lives, not something to wake up to one fine day. It's realized that batch wise & house wise activities work out (from experience with Sports activities). It has been quite some time since the director has been emphasizing on infusing a sense of belongingness amongst the students.
Roundup:

• Hold regular Inter Batch/House Competitions
• Proper Recognition for the people involved in the activities

Noteworthy is the fact the cultural council members were missing!

(With inputs from Pranav)

Big recruiters

With Motorola coming up for recruitment today, it adds up to the already long list of 'dream' companies. All great computer engineers wish to land up in one of these big shots. IIIT gave good opportunities to the current final years. We had:

1) Google - 7.5 lacs pa (1 BTech)
2) Microsoft - 7.8 lacs pa (5 BTechs)
3) Yahoo - 5 lacs pa (2 BTechs)
4) Adobe - 5+ lacs pa (1 BTech)
5) Nvidia - 4 lacs pa (3 BTechs)
6) Motorola - 3.8 lacs pa (5 BTechs)
7) DEShaw - 6.5 lacs pa (No BTech)
8) Sarnoff - 6.5 lacs pa (2 BTechs)

.. and lot more. Impressive list, huh? Exceptions aside, getting into one of these requires determination, hardest of the work and a zeal to win.

As requested in comments, UPDATED with approx packages and no. of BTech students recruited in each of them. No. of selections in these companies aren't high enough (as a normal company like TCS does) but then there aren't that many toppers in a batch too and not everyone succeeds in life. You have to decide the place where you want to see yourself. In all, around 40% of the batch has dream options in hand and that's actually a good number. You might want to check the complete statistics here

A University bans Wi-Fi

Slashdot reports that A Canadian university has banned wi-fi , since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors. According to the head of the university, "the jury's out on this one, I'm not going to put in place what is potential chronic exposure for our students."

So, electric and magnetic fields, is it? So should we too dislodge Wi-Fi? Or better still, should all electric and magnetic experiments carried out in all labs be banned? Oops! even monitors give out electrical signals. My brain is already paining. You think it's related? Or is the Canadian university nuts? My high-school teacher told me the earth has magnetic fields. Oh, my!

'Keep it Cool'?

1. There's an exam on Elements of Bioinformatics
2. Around 1 hour before the exam, final year students go over to the professor to get the exam cancelled. Reason informed: The course is really difficult. Reason in reality: Studies and students don't go along in final year
3. Professor politely asks them to study whatever they can
4. One of the students asks the faculty to teach them within that time left
5. Professor laughs and asks them to leave
6. Students go over to lab, get bored and finally land up eating outside
7. Professor happens to see those students eating, and not studying
8. Students reach the examination hall around half an hr later than the scheduled time
9. Students finish off their exam and come out of the examination hall before the end time

The degree of coolness probably increases with seniority.

R & D Showcase, the philosophy

A much awaited event for the IIIT junta. Along with the Excitement of Research (ExOR) workshops, the R & D showcase (known as Openhouse till 2004) literally showcases to the outside world the activities going on in the research labs here. With the number of visitors on the rise every year (last year we even had colleges bringing their students here in specially hired buses) we somehow seem to have created a 'buzz' about the event. Its intended impact is to make people aware of what research is and to enthuse students to take up research activities. Of course we want the best of such students to come to IIIT. Another attraction at the ExOR and Showcase events have been the talks by distinguished invitees. We had Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwalla and Dr. Kota Harinarayana last year for the ExOR and Mr.Kiran Karnik for the inauguration of Showcase. This year the ExOR workshops will be held on the 25th and 26th of February. R & D Showcase is proposed to be held on the 3rd & 4th of March. Students of the various labs are working hard to showcase their work. Grapevine has it that Mr. S Ramadorai the CEO of TCS will be inaugurating R & D Showcase this year. A big ticket announcement is expected. We don't want to steal the director's thunder, so we won't disclose much. We'll keep you updated, nevertheless. So, keep checking.

Now what are IIITians gaining from the R & D Showcase? A lot, if the number of PhD and MS admissions in the B-Tech final year are any indication. It was a visit to Openhouse in their first year that helped them know a lot about what research was. The number of honours students in the third year is also an indication of the 'buzz' created. So now is the opportunity of the Honours aspirants and the Dual degree students of the second year to visit the projects and decide on their specializations. Of course the first years would come to know what Academics at IIIT is actually about. All the UG students would also come to know what their quiet but efficient PG friends are doing in the laboratories & the PGs would know what the noisy, boisterous and always on a high UG students are doing academically.

(Courtesy: Ariel)

First Asian BarCamp

Rajan tells us about the first Asian barcamp that's going to be held in Delhi. Adobe's sponsoring the event. Check on. Its a great concept.

A tit-for-tat imbroglio

Aren't IIIT studs any better than any local college goons? How do you go
about taking out your frustration over a miniscule issue? Probably, the
one who threw eggs in Mr. BGR's (jr. Mr. BLN) room today gets 100 points
on that. Yes, you read it correctly. Two eggs in his office and another
outside the door. This was obviously done when he wasn't around. Poor
guard (Mr.Mehendi Hasan from Bengal) had to suffer a kind of 'disco' and
was fined Rs.200/. Come'on guys! Act better.

(Courtesy: Pukhraaj)

UG2k2: A batch with diversity

The current UG final year, B.Tech 2k2, has proven itself to be the most
all rounder batch till now. Every other day, there's a news of students
getting recruited in dream companies, some others getting admissions in
US universities (most of them with full aid), and MSBR students getting
scholarships and internship offers. A good number of them already have
calls from IIMs, XLRI and IIFT.

Would the trend continue? Would future batches work hard to keep up the
image of IIITians? Do these batches have that zeal of excelling in
whatever field they choose? How many of you feel the need to win in
life, a need of being the best in this competitive world? Take a piece
of paper and write down what you wish to achieve. That way, you might
not pretend to forget your goals at a later stage.

A few months more and most of the senior students would go off. Let us
make use of this opportunity we have, catch hold of them and get to know
their experiences and learnings. We cannot afford to delay anymore, can we?

(Debut post from Pukhraaj, our latest addition as an author)

From Desktops to Laptops

Slashdot is running a discussion on Switching a College from Desktops to Laptops ? This largely applies to IIIT as well since the first year studs are to have laptops before the next season. Fortunately enough, unlike that mentioned in the article, our instt won't force one on the make of the laptops -- we're free to buy any brand/configuration. The research labs will still stick to desktops, however. But there still are some questions unanswered: What do you do for resource-hungry apps (e.g. CAD, 3D rendering, games)? What about classroom restrictions? Will there be no batchwise labs?

Faculty update

It has been some time since some new faculties have joined. But not many students are aware, I'm sure. Dr Harjinder Singh, PhD from Princeton, has interests in Theoretical, Computational Chemistry and Biology, Chemical Dynamics, Electronic Structure and properties calculations. Dr Md. Zafar Ali Khan, PhD from IISc, Bangalore, has interests in Coding Theory, Space time codes, OFDN, Wireless, Signal Processing for Wireless and MIMO. He has already started taking classes (Analog & Digital Communications). Dr V U Reddy, who has joined as HelloSoft CTO, still comes to campus two days a week (some projects, et al).

No more sysadmins?

It seems that the institute is going to be looking for external sysadmins i.e. students wont be sysadmins any more ...

Sad isnt it??

Update:
We've been updated by a sysadmin that the above was plain rumour, caused perhaps due to the fact that a sysadmin-recruitment-exam was held a few days back.

Nomenclature of the hostels

"What's in a name?" Shakespeare mused. That was hundreds of years ago. But even today we seem to be carrying forward the irrelevance of names. For one, we still retain Old Boys' Hostel (OBH), New Boys' Hostel (NBH ), Girls' Hostel (GH) & NBH-Extn block.

The Old Boys' Hostel gives an impression of the boys being old, rather than the building. How long will the NBH boys remain new... they too age, don't they? And for how long will the NBH-Ext studs remain extended out of the NBH? Shouldn't we name the hostels? To recall correctly, there once was a fruitless discussion on the then DF. All sorts of names ranging from gods to psychos, from computer scientists to mahatmas, from cupids to total freaks, were tossed around -- nothing transpired. But hey CLC, give us names now!

Coders - Programming Club

A post by Omega about the new Programming Club (shouldn't the club website be linked from 200?). The starting of this club and the grand performance at Bitwise 2k6 mean that things are looking up for IIIT on the programming contests front. Hopefully, we will come up with a great performance at the ACM contests next year. Heard that there were 15 teams for the second contest conducted on thursday (16 feb) which translates to around 45 participants. Thats a lot considering the normally dormant IIIT populace especially before the midsems. Kudos to the people behind the club i.e Manik, Rama, Visesh etc.

ps - if you want to subscribe to the club, send a mail to coders-subscribe AT students.iiit.ac.in

Students get a LIFE !!

So, a new mailing list called Life has been created. Is it to replace the DF (discussion forum) that we had on 200 earlier? The complaints against DF was that it was used only by a minority. Since everyone is subscribed to 'Life' by default, it is hoped that not many would take the trouble to unsubscribe themselves ... hence not be indifferent to the discussions. But then, wouldn't this majority just press the simple 'D' and be done with it?
At the same time, I hope that some people do not assume that they can send anything to this list especially nonsensical all-over-the-world-travelling forwards. It is pretty clear what the first major topic for the list could be: "The latest security measures being contemplated by the faculty". Lets see who will post first. Will it be our campus-'life' council alias Pranav?

Movie club back to hibernation?

It's Saturday today, and no movie! Is the movie club back to hibernation? This exact phenomenon of the movie club oscillating between hibernation and action was buzzed earlier. But they got back. And now they're back to hibernation. Come'on people, decide -- are you ON or OFF? If it's too much toil, add a few more people. Sure there'd be so many of them interested. But show us some movies!

Lights Off

When does the entire IIIT pause and start shouting in unison?
Yep. When the lights go off at dark. Though uncommon, this phenomenon
has special significance when all that you can possibly see is darkness.
It happened again today. People who were walking, stopped and started
shouting. People in the mess stopped eating and started shouting &
clapping the tables. And when the lights were back, everyone was
laughing. At home, it's common to see the locality start shouting when
the lights come back after a power cut. But it's quite contrary here.

Techie News

A team from Philips, Bangalore led by Prof. PCP Bhat
(ex IITD) and Dr. Srinivas Gutta was on campus
yesterday . They were keen on seeing the vision
lab.

Some of the usual demos were setup :

1. Video Capture Tarun
2. DLI, Search Balu/Pramod
3. CBIR Suman
4. Retinal Processing Gopal
5. Display Wall Nirnimesh
6. GPU Processing Suni Mohan
.....and other interesting stuff .

Everything went well.Good job guys!

A parking ticket and an ID check

The recently concluded FSIS to which not many cared to go, resolved that security be tightened and vehicles to be parked behind NBH. Thinking about these aspects some things came to mind which sure ought to buzz sensiblity.

Security: Sure we need security coz LeT attacked IISc. But what abt the good ol' thugs who jump the boundary wall (90% of IIIT's unguarded boundary) or take a gate pass and come in. Sure the terrorists mustve learnt something apart from ramming through highly guarded gates in cars. Still, frequent ID checks all over the campus? They fake passports for a living!

Imagine - a bright moonlit night, sitting under the tree the couple in a romantic chat, pop peaks in the guard and asks for an ID. Pah! and this might as well happen.

Strengthening security measures is not all that will cure things, such things are beyond our control. (Trust our intelligence bureau is all i can say). Stringent security only hampers freedom of movement and unnecessary disturbances. What comes out of these new security measures when implemented is left to be seen.

Parking: Am sure the boys in the campus will love to grunt at the fact that, rushing to college in a bike will not be possible anymore. Thanks to OBH-Main Building road being declared a pedestrian zone, we will now have athletic, not-obese students in IIIT. I asked if someone could explain the reasoning that went into taking such a decision. I came to know that a certain BNR crashed his pulsar into our warden's car!

Still, could someone explain why the girls have been excluded again. Ok fine, we dont go to FSIS's and all as frequently, but we still exist. Would it be pleasant for us to go park our vehicles (yes, some girls have vehicles too) behind NBH!

Am sure not everyone who got his bike/car to the college will appreciate the fact that he/she will have to walk a long way to get to it. It beats the spirit!

The administration needs to be shown that there should not be motor accidents here and lot more of safety concerns being adhered to from our behalf anyway. This if represented might take care of the parking 'inhibitions'. Wonders...'Wheres the parliament when you need one'. Oops! They did have a "Request for Comments" mail, though!

High Decibel Whispers

Chain-Stare:

In today's DSP (Digital Signal Processing)class , there was this MTech guy staring at a ug2 girl .
Prof.N was staring at this MTech guy wondering who the latter was staring at ....
The rest of the class was staring at the Prof wondering who sir was staring at ...
The only one who was not staring was the lady who triggered it all ....... she was peacefully,blissfully asleep !
LOL ...

The real thing:
Last heard that some illegal drugs landed in OBH .... not going to reveal anything else .But to the ppl involved:
Please dont do it man!! Dont want the police to crack down on OBH,do we ??
:(

Boys in GH as girls in OBH?

After a long time the faculty agreed to the admittance of girls into the OBH. Some felt happy, some felt ecstatic. Ecstatic were the ones who cared more about food than boyfriends or otherwise.
So when finally the male bastion ie OBH was purified/defiled by girls, some felt the need for the female counterpart of OBH - GH to be invaded by the menfolk of course.
But think about it and see if this issue will make a buzz with the faculty.
Not that girls in GH would love to see 'boys' trampling all over the place, only that this thought makes for some imaginative thinking !
But what would the faculty suggest? My best guess is that they will allow boys coming from the main building to the nbh mess through the GH path!! Well that's how they got away with letting girls into OBH. Once i got a stern warning from our warden (yeah we have a warden for the GH as well) that i was spending too much time loitering in OBH whence coming from the first floor mess to the exit.
I heard one R (a boy) say that he will fight to let boys into the GH. Thinks...who does he want to meet? Well for me, i wont like a boy in the cleanest hostel in IIIT.

Feline Blogging

As always, the better 10% of the campus (the girls, that is) is not usually heard of in the blogosphere. I took the pains to go around smr's blogroll and otherwise to track some females who are into blogging.

Nishkala, Gdit-99, one of the best students of IIIT http://nishkala.blogspot.com gives an index to good tips for 'MBA in the US' aspirants. Going through the blog and its posts - Some stuff its got. Simeen, ug4, one heavy duty blogger, she's got some good interests and the blog makes a good reading http://she-blogz.blogspot.com. Kiran, ug4, http://longlingeringlook.blogspot.com - Never have I come across a blog which beats pranav's blog in more than one aspect - length, breadth, depth.

Guyz look up and take heed - Gals got some stuff too
--
Valkyrie (debut post)
IIITBuzz's first authoress.

Futbol and Fitness

The inter-batch sporting events are on in full swing. But one small thought comes across one's head:

- UG4 gives UG3 a bye
- UG3 were nowhere near their element while playing UG1.In fact the best players got tired in a wink.
- UG2’s playing fine.. but an indication of lethargy creeping into the UG2 - “calcio” - picture is slightly evident

So the does it sound like people are getting less fit ?!?! Did the guys already start aging?
Yuck.

Come on guys! Lets remember Mel’s dialogue in Lethal Weapon: “We are not too old for this s#it !”
--
abbulugadu (debut story)

PS: Hope to see the jinx broken at today’s match  b/w  UG3 and PG

Dr. NDR is leaving

Dr. NDR Sharma is leaving IIIT. He is going to join an ongoing power systems research project and then onto one of the IIT's.

Choosing Career Pathways

Shiben discusses about the possible pathways available to a IIIT student from amongst Research, Engineering & Management. With a questionaire-based classification of interests into Research oriented, Management oriented, Work oriented or Money oriented he presents answers to the decision popularly troubling sophomores: To Honors or not to Honors, that is the question!

Placements '06

Akansh has an optimistically written statistics for this year's placements. To look back from where things started, it doesn't look that bad. Good people did get to good places. For one, Manikandan, perceived to be amongst the most suitable one at the start of this season, finally did get to Sarnoff & Google. D J Mokani, who had the distinction of clearing so many tests and getting rejected later on, eventually got into Google, Bangalore. And additions to the list still expected.

Valentine's Day

Hmm.. Valentine's Day!
So m a n y people have written about the day -- even the non-regular ones. Poetry, plans, there's all. Harish, poetically, announces The IIIT Valentine's day awards. Naturally, he cannot announce the names -- or did he? And at least this one guy got a nice V'day present from the sysadmins. Oh, this day should be a holiday!

On IIIT Buzz

Apocalypse runs a small dissertation on IIIT Buzz. He gets the idea right -- seeing iiitbuzz as a working substitute for a newsletter. We aim to record (almost) every news in campus..  buzz, as they say.

About Cmdr Buzz:
It isn't really important. It's just another IIITian. It's one of you. The idea of multiple authors is to maintain a wide footprint. Authors are anonymous so as to avoid bias. Bias in favor of IIIT is permitted, however. And there aren't just 3 authors. Wait and watch. This is the still the trailer.

Authors:
If this suspense, fun, wit attracts you, and you think you agree with the above, and you think you are capable enough, and wish to bring out the journalist in you, write to cmdrbuzz@gmail.com mentioning why you are interested.

Post-Felicity '06 Analysis

The Motorola school classroom was packed. Everyone was shouting,
squealing while Dr Kamal sat laughing. It was the first-of-its-kind at
IIIT. It was the post-Felicity analysis. And congratulations rented the
air. All organizers and volunteers were preesnt. The organizers of all
the events walked up to the dias one by one and presented their
difficulties during organization, and more importantly, the things to
take care of by the suceeding Felicity organizers. They all shared one
advice -- start on time -- so the message is clear.

Dr Kamal spoke for a few minutes and suggested organizing techfest and
culfest separately -- he asked to think it over.

A portal is coming up (by Wed 15th) to collect feedback/suggestions with
respect to individual events.

This session was preceeded by soup, and followed by dinner in the Guest
House.

Planning for V'day

It's Valentine's day tomorrow. As always, Shivsena and some other culture-savers will take out processions, burn pickets, block roads, etc. But you have better things to do: plan a gift. Utkarsh is doing just that, except that he's hilarious in his contemplations . UG2k1 had an intra-batch love-letter writing competition last year; Utkarsh was the winner. You ought to follow his advice, therefore.

The one on Prof Kaul

Akansh has a lovely and nostalgic article on Kaul sir, the first proff to teach every UG batch at IIIT. He talks about the time recently when he was hospitalized but now he's all hale and hearty. Akansh even had dinner at their home. In his words: He's been such a kind-hearted man..
If you recall, I'm Prof Kaul. :-)

IIIT @ Bitwise '06

It was Bitwise yesterday and this year it was different. Compared to previous years, this time saw far greater participation from the students here. Looks like the coding-club initiative works. The rankings from IIIT, in the first 100, stand at 6, 24, 54, 61, 66, 78 and 100. CTRL_D, with Rank 6, stands at the top spot. This team got 8 problems fully correct, 1 partially correct (P5) and the last one wasn't solved by anone anyway. So P5 was the only problem which separated them from top points.

The most striking fact to note, however, is that this team is from the 2nd year -- a batch which perhaps has the general perception that their coding skills are weak. The seniors substantially fell short of them -- a recurring phenomenon over the past few years now. What's wrong with the seniors? Do they get complacent with passing years?

Canteen coming back soon

Call it God's answer to our prayers or call it the outcome of the
efforts of the messcom, the canteen is coming back into action very soon
(~10 days). R R caterers, the one currently running the NBH mess is
chosen for the canteen. There are some natural advantages for having the
canteen run by a caterer already running a mess -- For one, he won't
keep cribbing about the compulsory mess, secondly, he already
knows/understands the system here. The last canteen, though started with
a lot of fanfare and investment, can be termed as a bit far-fetched as
far as the expectations of the caterer went, and the amount of business
he expected. The new one should be more reasonable. Thank you, Arpit &
group.

From IIIT to IIMs and US

Many UG4 students have applied for MS/Phd in univs abroad. Many others have written CAT and other B-school entrance exams. Guess what? Good news has been pouring in. For the records as many as 9 persons got Catcalls (3-Blacki's- Satvik, Rastogi and Mohnish) and a lot others have got calls from IIFT, XLRI and FMS. Interviews are in full swing currently.
The techies are not behind either. Sharath (the bond of algorithms) has already been offered admission in two highly acclaimed universities- Brown and Purdue (both rank in the top 15). Aravind Krishna has been offered admission at Iowa State Univ. A lot more offers to these two and others are expected to be in the pipeline.

China vs. India

Vakiba has an introspective writeup on What’s right with China ? What’s wrong with India ? His reasons are earnest -- Indians often carry inferiority-complex & development areas aren't well-balanced. It is only when Indians realize that they stand different from the west (even though they are a mixed race) that they would understand the sense of competition and face up to the challenge of China. Isn't some shameful inferiority-complex prevalant in the campus as well?

Yet another misleading IIITian

Shark intends to reveal the "truth" about sports in IIIT as if to say that he's had enough of it, and won't take anymore. But all his reasons seem lame -- PT is bad, I cannot manage sports coz I have assignments, brilliant people don't know ABCD of sports, etc. Why are people so sad with life? Have the guts to change things you don't like boy!

Movie club is back

The movie club is back in action. And they've promised to be consistent this time, inviting suggestions, criticisms, etc. This issue had been buzzed earlier here. Hope the movie-com has ensured dependable arrangements for the show(s) -- things like bad print quality, stuck DVD drives and poor sound are huge turn-offs. They better be prepared. Welcome back, movie club.

Blog war over IIIT vision

There's a huge blog war going on on Halley's blog. Halley posted his
objections against the lines mentioned on www.iiit.ac.in, specifically
about IIIT's vision. He, it seems, has strong objections against almost
all of them. Nirnimesh has commented to them point-by-point and
Vardhman feels such disgust is a result of some communication gap. And it
looks as if there's going to be a huge discussion over "how to make IIITH
a better place".

The fine-prints of Fine Arts

Omega (aka Pramod P) writes his experiences with the Fine Arts course, an HSSM which (almost) everyone in UG has inadvertently taken at some point of time. In his post, which is a bit long, he describes the entire fraud that the course is, as the "teacher" has this stupidly clever way of ensuring that people keep taking his course and keep his financial flow flourishing. Apparently, the proff put up tantrums to extend his spell to cover the next semester as well, but wasn't quite successful.

Atanu Dey @ Felicity

Vardhman has a nice article on one of Felicity's invited talks, the one by Atanu Dey, of Deesha.org fame. For those of you who could not make it to the talk either because you could not wake up on time or otherwise, his dissertation beutifully summarizes the content of the talk -- Surplus of information, Monkey Fish Example, Importance of Increasing production power in the country, Rival good/Non Rival good, Removing illiteracy, etc. Atanu Dey's writings are singularly interesting and sometimes hilarious, such as this where he muses on "Who paid for my education?"

CS Reporter

Obelix forks a new identity as a Counter Strike Reporter and describes the recent upheavals in the old order at Counter Strike (Zombie Zone) with the clash of [CeG] vs. Titans in de_inferno. And he promises he Will be back with more Counter Strike News as and when it happens

Change of guards

If you haven't been overly detached during your strolls around the campus, you would have noticed that the security guards have changed. The khaki uniform worn by the previous guards at the main-security, hostels, and main-gate have migrated to striped-white ones with traffic-police caps. And what strikes me the most is that all the security guards have the caps of the same big size -- as if going with the policy of one cap fits all. You might also notice most of them inundated in their overflowing caps. So much so that you cannot make out if the guard outside the hostel cuddled up in the night is actually a person or instead just a stick wrapped in warm clothes with a big cap hung on top.

In the least, I hope that this recent change of security guards is not meant for moral policing a la Meerut some time ago.

Won't the movie club move?

Quite periodically the movie club swings into action and shows us a few movies, but then there follows a long hibernation -- the movie club sleeps. As if to say -- "Don't you have enough movies on the LAN?". Well, but movies on the big screen is still more appealing, right! The voting portal still exists, though. Oh, bring back the movie club, please.

Laptops @ IIIT

The Wireless LAN in IIIT has been up and running for quite some time now, but there aren't a lot of laptops in campus. However, the first year students are to purchase laptops before they move to their sophomore year. There was a showcase of laptops from HCL, Toshiba, HP/Compaq and Acer during Felicity. Vardhman has some valuable suggestions to make regarding the make, and if he is to be belived, the campus will be inundated with HCL laptops as well, after having shifted almost completely to HCL for workstations in the labs. HCL is really good, in fact.

Felicity '06

Months of speculation, weeks of planning, days of hardwork and minutes of minute plannings culminated during Felicity '06. Despite the startup hiccupps of some online contests being postponed by a few hours, the events on the field came out really well. Harish Baba has been following the events quite neatly here, here and here. The invited talks weren't much appreciated though, as is penned here by halley.

Kama Sutra shocks

The Kama Sutra virus (aka nyxem) slated to begin eating files on 3rd did at least some damage in our campus as well, despite falling short of the mayhem expected of it. The students, it seems, didn't get affected much. At least, there wasn't much increment in the sysadmin's IP blocklist. Reportedly, however, Dr Rammurthy's PC got a LOUD shock as his doc/xls/ppt/pdf files got deleted. Someone, obvisously, hadn't put on the patch announced to all earlier by JP.

The beginning

The blog
A place to record and discuss what's buzzing at IIIT. Everything concerning the mass.

The philosophy
Stay informed about the latest buzz in campus.

The people
A loosely hung team of studs (phreaks), amongst us, who jot down those laughable and interesting moments.. for you!

Want to post?
Interested to get post access? Feel you have the journalist hidden within you? Drop a line to cmdrbuzz@gmail.com. Don't forget to mention why your're interested?