Campus buzz... things that matter

The last post

2006-11-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

This is the last post on IIITBuzz.

It was pretty evident from the scanty posts that CmdrBuzz was missing (for a few months now). Well, the reason is that CmdrBuzz (yup, me) has graduated and moved out of IIIT. The blog was started as an effort to report the buzz in campus and has been pretty successful (except for the last 3 months). Also, the blog aimed to record the day-to-day events at IIIT and it did quite a neat job of it too (except for the last 3 months, again).

I hope someone can use one's journalistic skills to create something similar, to keep updates for IIIT. News, by itself, is as cold as ice. It's only when an author lives in the news that the ice melts. This blog can serve as a motivation, if anything.

I started this blog as an experiment. I wanted to see how the people in the institute think. What are rumours? What causes rumours? What is news? How many people know the news? How many people get the facts right? How many people really think? The answers to these are for my personal consuption.

I employed psychology with this blog to gain mind-share. To give an example: Did you ever notice the "Just buzzed" comment on every post which buzzed on this blog? Just think over it and you'll realize why we put it. Or did you note that we have been using the word "buzz" throughout this blog as a selling catch-phrase -- a tounge-o-philic term? Don't agree? Just count the number of times "buzz" occurs in this post. Or did you notice that the (almost) secret identity of the authors added flair to the ordeal?

Throughout this blog, we tried our best to maintain the truth. It is because of this factor that IIIT Buzz had some credibility with the faculty too.

Who is CmdrBuzz?
The ones who need to know can add 2+2. For the rest, it doesn't even matter. Really.

Adios
Cmdr Buzz
Editor, IIIT Buzz

Server room tragedies

2006-11-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

It seems like the server room tragedies which had seemed like a thing of the past have come back. Read Turbine's blogs for more. Also, ftp and telnet ports have been blocked on 200 for "security" reasons. It is suspected that this action was taken after 200 was hacked / cracked.

If you haven't noticed - SMR has changed the look of blogroll.

Wireless and Wired LAN

2006-10-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

We all know that wireless LAN has been performing poorly. After the recent maintenance session, DC++ was blocked. Wired LAN is now following in the footsteps of Wireless. With speeds between adjacent rooms in OBH varying at around 400 kbps, it is only a matter of time before some of the predictions in ORB's post come true.

South Zone Inter College Football Tournament

2006-10-08T02:01:00.000-07:00

IIIT's football team will be going to Chennai from the 10th to the 13th of this month to take part in the South Zone Inter Collget Football Tournament. The first match is against University of Madras. Defender Siddarth Ravi was enthusiastic about the team's chances.

Carnival Returns

2006-09-18T03:06:00.000-07:00

Yup..... the campus was again briming with activity throughout the day...n well,night.
Kudos to the guys n gals who managed it n put up a wonderful show.
While various activities ranging from adzap,debate,blindfold-sketching .... were scattered through
out the day with an appreciable audience(hope you know that's how it is in IIIT),the kho-kho forced people out of their afternoon nap.
The evening events set the mood upbeat with the (a)musical chair,the thoroughly enjoyed - treasure hunt, the brain-tickling bluffmaster,catch-the-clip ..
hey!! did i mention the talent show,the paper dance,the .......... oomph...... gala time....... Cheers!!

PS - this soul might have missed some events - during the hopper's break time. ;)
no offence meant.Thanx for the great Sunday.

Must Read Blog

2006-09-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Mythalez has been writing about his experiences in Southampton (UK). A fun read for anyone with excellent descriptions of the british, the place and life in general as a student in a foreign country.

Check it out.

The Foundation Day Panel Discussion

2006-09-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

The most important and highly anticipated part of the foundation day was the Panel Discussion. A mail sent to the students read :

The idea of having Panel Discussions on 'IIIT Culture' came in the context of the recent 'Ragging' scene which led to 3 students being sent to Mussourie as a part of transformational measure.

Whether or not the word ‘transformational’ should have had quotes around it is open to debate. The mail went on to state the questions which would be asked (and hopefully answered), and it made interesting reading :

What is the 'IIIT Culture' as has been gained through the past experience in the Institute? How has it fared?

and

What kind of Culture should IIIT build - among the students as well as the faculty and staff - as an Institute striving for better nation-building?

After sitting through the panel discussion, one thing is clear for all to see – those questions were asked to some minor extent but they were not really answered. There are two more discussions left to be held, with different panelists, so there is yet a chance something constructive may come out of all this. The people who participated in the panel discussion made up a very good mix - two current students, two alumni and two faculty. The panelists were (as announced in the afore mentioned mail):

Prof. Rajeeev Sangal, Director
Prof. P J Narayan, Dean (R & D)
Sunil Mohan Adapa, Alumnus (Batch of 2003)
Jayachandra Sunkara, Alumnus (Batch of 2004)
I V Aprameya Rao, Student, UG IV
Varun Boppana, Student ,UG III

The Moderator was Prof. P R K Rao and the session by and large went smoothly. The session was initiated by the moderator, who chose to quote a couple of famous personalities and then proceeded to explain to the audience his interpretation of their wise words. Shortly, the session officially began with the moderator handing the stage over to the panelists. The panelists were given a limit of five minutes to state their opinions before the debate began, but the actual amount of time each panelist talked for was more or less random. Some of the speeches were interesting and provided a unique insight into what the panelist considered a part of IIIT culture, but most were barren and devoid of any great conviction.

Given the boring and repetative manner in which the speeches began before the proceedings gained some momentum, a reasonable section of the audience was seen rubbing their eyes, yawning and in some cases, even sleeping on the uncomfortable chairs. After each panelist had stated his point of view the debate began.

The panelists were asked if they had anything to say about all the points which the others might have touched upon. The panelists treated this like they did their initial speeches, carefully weighing their words before speaking and adding umpteen “aaahs” before most lines. Then began the most productive part of this discussion which, bar a speech or two, was otherwise dreary and mediocre till that point of time. The stage was thrown open to the audience.

The audience had some good questions to ask and some quaint comments to make, but none of them directly dealt with those burning questions due to which this discussion had to be held in the first place. Rather than approach the topic from a higher level of abstraction, the questions were more about individual references which the panelists had made during their initial speeches.

A special mention has to be made of Prof. P J Narayan, whose witty comments and interesting personal experiences earned much appreciation from the audience. His comments on the way people treat "muggers" and his replies to the questions from the audience probably added a bit of flair to the evenings proceedings.

Prof PRK Rao’s job was made easier due to all the questions asked, which barely kick-started any real debate. More discussions of this sort would certainly be welcome, but only if they would result in some good solutions being found. However, watching so many people leaving right in the middle of the session was disappointing to say the least and that is probably one of the reasons why we have need of more such discussions in the first place.

BumbleBee Exam Time

2006-08-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

BumbleBee has no exams to take but it knows exams-time's approaching when:

Bathrooms remain unused for days at a stretch. Undergrads prefer to dwell in the placebo that time shouldn't be wasted in something as ephemeral as hitting the showers.
Love-birds are missing from their usual spots in the campus in the evenings. Instead, they're found in the library.
TAs assume god-like status with worshippers frolicing around lest the TA should utter words of wisdom or leak info about the "important" chapters.
The photocopier near the library has a thriving business.

BumbleBee studies the alertness level of an undergrad student in the neighbourhood of exam-time.
As expected, the stud's alertness level drops severely once the exam starts. The stud elevates to a state of trans for 3 hours. Words read / hour is way greater during exam-time than during prep time. This is also because during exam-time the stud has to read not only his own paper but the paper of his/her 6-neighbours as well.

BumbleBee stumbles across the undergraduate lab where a TA is checking assignments in person.
TA: You're busted. It's not your code.
Stud: oh.. no no no. It's 100% mine, sir. You can ask me anything.
TA: Um...ok.. tell me what's a linked list?
Stud: Well, Oxford dictionary defines a linked list as......
TA: Get lost
(the student departs)
Stud (to himself): What got him suspicious? Someone must've tipped him.
TA (to himself): Huh.. That code is definitely copied. I showed the same code to my TA last year!

Barged In Again

2006-08-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Last time it was Vasavi and now it is CBIT. All the people who can remember what happened last time (Feb 28) when Vasavi college guys and gals came to our college to promote their fest will recall that almost the same feat was repeated by the CBIT guys trying to promote their fest last Thursday. All of a sudden some 15-20 cars appeared out of nowhere and the people started screaming on the top of their voices forcing even the faculty to come out and look out for what was happening. The promotion was horrendous, no one got any idea of their fest, people who were there on the first floor of main building didn't even know which college they come from, leave aside knowing about their fest and all. Comparing this with the our publicity for Felicity, wherever the representatives of IIIT went they maintained decorum.

Also, it puts a lot of question marks on the security system.

(Article by Himank)

Who gets whose Mails?

2006-08-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

Working on a tip off, we discovered that there are some interesting observations about a few batch mailing lists.

Observation 1:
For one, there has been some time since all mails sent to UG2 are landing into the mailboxes of UG1-CSE studs as well. This is because UG2's mailing list contains an entry for ug1_cse. Common sense dictates that it might have been an honest mistake. Apparently this matter has already been reported to the sysadmins, but the fact that the error still exists indicates that the reporting has gone like water on a duck's back.

Observation 2:
UG1 and UG2 beware. All mails sent to your batch's mailing list lands into Prof Kamal's mailbox as well. Someone indeed is watching what the freshers and sophomores are up to.

(Thanks to "Mr Somebody" for the tip off)

Personal Internet Service

2006-08-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

The institute's internet has gone from bad to worse to pathetic lately. When google search takes 10 seconds to load even when the bandwidth monitor reads full-speed, it doesn't take an Einstein to realize that something must be definitely wrong. Unfortunately, the dark lords are not amused.

SMR floats an idea of a personal internet service whereby he can lease a new internet connection and sublet internet within campus. Not only will it definitely be more reliable than the current state of IIIT's internet, it'll bring peace into the lives of many. It'll prove manna for studs whose heart stops beating every time the internet stops / slows down.

Even if we just have to talk about it, a reliable internet with browseable speed is all that we want. Is that too much to ask for?

CVIT adds another lab

2006-08-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

CVIT has added another lab to its already existing list of 3 labs. The fourth one has recently been setup in Room no. 214.

BumbleBee buzzes again

2006-08-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

BumbleBee had nothing better to do since the IIIT Internet was down; so it investigates theories on how to utilize such frequently-occurring situations:
Theory 1: There's no better time for coffee. Fire a google search and stroll towards the coffee shop. If you're lucky, the results will be almost ready when you return.
Theory 2: Stare at the monitor as the google search result loads @ 100 words / min. A free time-travel to the age when Internet was just evolving.
Theory 3: You get an opportunity to appreciate the lesser things in life -- pending projects, the sound of the birds, the color of the sky.

BumbleBee analyzes the anxiety level of an undergraduate student as the exams approaches:

The peak observed in the above graph (~2 hrs before exam) is the moment of frenzy when UG studs scurry about searching for text-books.

BumbleBee was busy brushing its wings when it overhears two girls chat in the "Motivate your BF" club:
Alice: Paul has been performing so poorly in the tests lately. I'm worried.
Nancy: Why, what does he do the whole day long?
Alice: He spends all day writing stupid posts on some blog about IIIT.
Nancy: That's your BF!? My BF spends all day reading that! Make him stop!

BumbleBee, tired of the nagging, moves away to hover over two guys in the "Make a GF this year" club:
Paul: Got a road map to achieve the year's resolution?
Frank: I've been regularly scrapping all gals in my friends' list on Orkut. Actually, even friends of friends, then their friends, and so on...
Paul: Oh! But, you shouldn't come too strong. You'll get people them suspicious.
Frank: Huh! I already figured that. So to even it out I scrapped a bunch of guys too. They must have scrapped back by now. I'll go check.

Ex-Dean talks at Infospur

2006-08-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

Newindpress reports about our beloved former-Dean speaking at Infospur-2K6, a national symposium on 'Discerning the Edges of Technology', organised by Avanti Institute of Engineering and Technology and Saint Theresa Institute of Engineering and Technology.
FTA:

Speaking on the occasion, IIIT, Hyderabad dean R Govindarajulu stressed the need for extensive research on IT and advised the young engineers to acquire skills appropriate to the needs of the country.

[Poll] Rate the Carnival

2006-08-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

IIIT organised a first-of-its-kind Carnival last Sunday. Even though the motivation is shrouded with a lot of bitterness, the event pulled off quite well. Now that a few days have passed and the emotional outburst has supposedly been put at rest, how would you rate the carnival?

Grade the Carnival
How do you rate the Carnival (20/08/2006)?

A
B
C
D
F
I

view results

BumbleBee buzzes

2006-08-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Introducing... BumbleBee

BumbleBee overhears a conversation in the doctor's room.
Stud: I'm having irregular heart-beats.
Doc: How long has it been?
Stud: It's been for a while. But lately, it has become prominent. My heart starts pounding every now and then. Sometimes, I'm restless for hours at a stretch. Please help me.
Doc: Open your mouth
Stud: aaaaa.
Doc: Are you in love? Some girl?
Stud: Fie. Fie. Nah.. all of them hate me.
Doc: Well let me see your eyes and your hand
Stud: Here it is
Doc: You have nothing. The irregular heartbeat is due to the dilapidated internet condition. Your heart starts pounding whenever the internet is down or is slow. Go back to your room, dork.

BumbleBee (BBee) runs across a UG4 stud as he gets out of of the viva-room after the BTP-viva.
BBee: Paul, is it true that there's only a marginal difference between the work you presented for the last BTP viva and this one?
Stud: Garbage! that's what others tell to defame me.
BBee: Oh really! So, what are the improvements in your work?
Stud: You see, I've been working very hard. There has been a change of perspective since the last BTP-viva. It's all a learning process, really.
BBee: Yes, why don't you have experimental results to quantify it?
Stud: Ah, who cares about intermediate results. I have the final application ready.
BBee: Oh great. What's your project by the way?
Stud: Well, not sure... it's something to do with video-conferencing over the network. It's a traditional project (I got it from a senior). It has worked wonderfully over the years, I'm told.

BumbleBee (BBee) interviews a group of agitated students sitting on a dharna outside the director's office.
BBee: Paul, What exactly are you demanding?
Paul: Well, we are demanding that starting next year, fresh students be enrolled before the summer hols rather than after it.
BBee: But don't you think it'll be difficult, with the entrance tests, counselling, etc? How does it even matter to you anyway?
Paul: You see, the summer hols are too long to stay at home. We're planning on a trip to Mussoorie. With the freshers having arrived, getting a sponsored trip will be so damn easy.

--
BumbleBee is a bee. It has 8 legs, 4 wings, 2 antennae, 1 mouth and 0 brains.
Just in case you don't get it, the mood in the above excerpts is "satirical".
Thanks to someone for pointing us to this.

Research First, then Placements

2006-08-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

As per a mail received by research students, the placement policy for coming season will entail that MS students don't take part in the "normal" placements held Dec onwards. Placements for them will be personalized for each MS student, arranged for specially by the institute. This round of placements will begin only in April and a student requires his/her advisor's approval before appearing for it. The message is loud and clear: concentrate on research work; then (and only then) placements will be taken care of.

ISAS gal tying knots

2006-08-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Sreelakshmi, an alumnus of the UG2k batch, is getting married to Prasad (of UG99) tomorrow. Sreelakshmi is one of the two responsible for the ISAS system (along with Vandana), for which they received the Banyan award. Prasad had been a well-known geek figure in campus and had been a system administrator for a while too.

This is perhaps the second IIIT couple, having chosen their other-half within from within IIIT, the first being Sujit (UG98) who married to fellow-batchmate Rupa a few months ago.

All the Best to the happy couple.

Indian or International?

2006-08-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

Rumour has it that there's an ongoing effort to get back the original name
of the institute, that is become "Indian" Instt of Information Tech.

IIIT's name was changed to "International" a few years ago after pressure
from the government that words like Indian, National, etc should be owned
only by government-managed institutes since they lead to confusion.

The faculty members are in favour of getting back the "Indian" tag. What
does the rest of IIIT think?

Bakras of GDIT'99

2006-08-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Ravikiran, an alumnus currently at UWash, maintains a link to a collection of bakra mails sent to his batch during IIIT years. Whereas some are a result of login-left-open mails, there are is a large variety of pure humorous ones too, ranging from GRE / Felicity / CRs to love-declarations / emotional-outburst / fanatics. Some excerpts are quoted below. Read on for the rest.

i've at last discovered my love in the fresher's
party

I am gonna go for a diet. Plzzzzzzzzz...... help me in slimming down. Kick
me if you see me eating anything........

I'm going to start teaching dance in the morning...
   and yoga in the night,from tomorrow onwards.

After tiring work of around 1 year, finally i came out with an
algirithm to find out a person's sex. Here goes the SDA-Algoritm.....

200 and counting

2006-08-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

This article marks the 200th post on IIIT Buzz. So, Yeeaaaah.

Started on 5th Feb with the motto as "A place to record and discuss the most buzz..ing things concerning IIIT ", this blog has lived for 193 days. That works out to an average of 1.036 posts per day. Discounting the dry period of summer hols, the average goes higher. Individual posts have seen comments ranging from a high of 24, to a low of (of course) 0.

Besides, IIIT Buzz is the only known blog to have confirmed readership by faculty members (note: plural) and off and on some faculty members have been known to comment as well. The authors take this as a pride, along with the responsibility to ensure that not-any-post makes it to IIIT Buzz. Apart from IIIT students, several alumni members also check up to know "wassup?" with the institute. IIIT Buzz is also known to drive a surge in traffic to students' blogs that get buzzed.

IIIT Buzz currently has 8 authors (girls included), each of whom abides by the ethos. Apart from these regular authors, IIIT Buzz occassionally receives tip-offs about news items, through email. For every article that actually buzzes, there are a couple of those that are discarded, for a variety of reasons.

All the above is not a coincidence. At the back of IIIT Buzz goes a commendible amount of brainstorming amongst the IIIT Buzz Team members. A couple of new items are planned and we are pretty excited about it. Keep your fingers crossed.

Adios, and stay buzzed.

The I-day Cultural Tune

2006-08-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

There are some questions which never have a universally acceptable answer, good examples being "What is the meaning of Life?", " Why do people love Himesh Resmaiyya's songs?", "Who is John Galt? " and "What is IIIT culture?". Whatever IIIT culture may (and may not) be, being late is something which would have to be included in any of its many definitions. The cultural evening which was scheduled to start at 17:30 hrs yesterday, true to form, started late.

The event was held in the old library room (#119). Sometime after the program started, there was a seating crisis, with more and more people wanting to watch the show. Thanks to the additional lengths of carpet laid out, and to the high levels of dexterity displayed by the students (which helped squeeze two people in one chair), everyone managed to reach a reasonable state of comfort.

After an anterior dance, the program got underway. There was a play by some kids demonstrating the contempt with which people of different religions treat each other. This was followed by a telugu play, which was very well done, earning a very enthusiastic response from a clearly impressed audience. Much praise has to be attributed to the organizers and actors in this play. It had an awesome script backed up by very good acting. Judging by the reaction of the crowd, this would have to be the best program of the evening.

After this was the most anticipated show of the evening -- the Instrumental Performance. Much to the delectation of the audience, the three months of hard training clearly seems to have paid off ("for the past month, we practised from after classes at 7:30 till midnight on some days", to quote Violin Vasu). Despite the relatively small amount of time spent in preparing for this event, there were barely any mistakes made during the performance.

Following this was a short play, in English. Despite some guffaws from the audience, the play as a whole left a lot to be desired, and appeared unpolished. The gap between the two plays was pretty large in terms of quality, as was indirectly pointed out later by Prof Govindarajulu.

This was followed by some talks by the faculty members who were present, to give the actors time to change their costumes. The evening ended with a Mime Show by the students. It illustrated the internal struggle which we all go through when making decisions, and how one side wins in the end.

Irrespective of whatever IIIT Culture means, one thing is clear - we may not be the most cultured people around, but in a few years time the Cultural Quotient of the campus would be pretty high. So, a hearty Well Done to the Cultural Council. More of the same please.

(Debut post by Basilisk, our new author)

To Do or Not To Do

2006-08-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sagar Rastogi, an alumni currently at IIM-A, writes about his experiences while organizing an event at IIM and compares it to IIIT which being a new institute wasn't very organized.

One of the traditions here at WIMWI is the T-nite. On paper, it is something like the Amalgam we used to have in IIIT

In retrospect, he confesses that even though he saw many problems at IIIT, he did not do much to solve them.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty about that because when I was there I didn't really think big / long-term for the institute… and at the risk of sounding boastful, I think I could have made a difference. I had some ideas from time to time… but I cynically pushed them away without even trying, thinking that they were doomed to failure. Bad decision :(

This is not the first time when an alumni feels sorry about not having done enough to make a difference. Time and again several alumni members have felt the same. Unfortunately, such thoughts occur after having left IIIT, not before. What else, otherwise, could have stopped someone like Sagar from making a difference as he wanted to?

So, before getting back to the usual rhetoric of flaming anything and everything, think about what you could do that could solve the problem. Or else you could just do nothing and carry the guilt later. The choice, as is always, is yours.

Kalam sings Jeevan Vidya on I-day Eve

2006-08-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

A P J Abdul Kalam, President of India, while addressing the nation on the eve of its 60th Independence day, mentions about the Jeevan Vidya experience as a typical model that has made a significant impact on social development. From the article:

Jeevan Vidya experience: Jeevan Vidya is being practiced by Prof. Ganesh Bagaria, IIT, Kanpur, Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Director IIIT (Hyderabad) and their teams. This scheme is concerned about addressing the basic causes of major problems of violence, corruption, exploitation, domination, terrorism and war. It has been found that violent and anti-social behaviour, unless dealt with care and with professionalism, could aggravate the extreme behaviour.

Jeevan Vidya develops tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty in human conduct by enabling self-knowledge that understands harmony in the self and in the entire existence. The academicians could bring about marked change even among the inmates of jails through the use of these techniques.

There's a lot of obvious rage against Jeevan Vidya in campus, especially since it's compulsory. However, is the rage justified? Or is the rage just against it being compulsory?

If someone as learned as the President of India feels so highly about Jeevan Vidya that he mentions it on the I-day eve, it must definitely be something sensible and upright. It must really be "a 'teachable human value based skill' that can address inherent conflicts within the mind of the individual, within families, in organisations and in public life".

Two to a Room

2006-08-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Karan writes about the problems of having to share a room in the hostel.

From the article:

It is just that its difficult for two people to adjust in a room meant for one! Theres barely space enough for two beds, a table and a chair to fit in. And now, having to manage it with two laptops on a single table(thats not all.. most of us have gone in for external hardware devices like keyboard, mouse and speakers), stifled is the perfect word to describe our state. Does that leave space on the table to study?

Although it appears to be written as an outburst, he ends it nicely with:

Of course, I have nothing against two people staying in a room.. but considering the disadvantages, they way outnumber the advantages. I hope that something is done about it soon, and the work on the new hostel speendens up, so that they can be ready for use by the next semester.