The best things in life are free ?!?

One fine day, when I was checking out w3schools.com , i noticed its tagline 'The best things in life are free' ; which turned out to be an interesting as well as an intriguing topic. I put that up as my GTalk status message as well on that day. And I began to do some 'research' on this topic. It took me around a month to complete this blog post. Not that I was doing 'heavy' research on this subject....I wasn't getting much time to write with project deadlines n all around!
One of the global surveys revealed that the best pleasures in life come without a price tag. They rated pleasures derived from a long soak in the bath, an afternoon snoooze (which is my personal favourite :D), spending time with family and loved ones, listening to music, reading a book, enjoying a bottle of wine, spending a laiback day in a relaxed frame of mind ('An entire day to myself') etc gave them unmatched pleasures. BUT I don't completely agree to it. I would rather rephrase it and say 'Some of the best pleasures in life are for free!'. And for most of the pleasures in this modern day world, you need to have money! We Indians are a very emotional lot; being with loved ones, friends and family gives us most pleasure. And the happiness quotient for us lies in the fact that we want to make our near and dear ones happy and take good care of them. If that is done, we are happy. To have those precious moments and to do things that make you feel good, you need money, and I would not be wrong if I say that money buys you the opportunity to get the best things you want for yourself and to make you happy. Another point is that, to spend time with your loved ones you need to have free time, which in itself is an expensive luxury.

4 heavenly days @ kastlevista,blore

What an amazing weekend it was.... cudn't have asked for anything more!
I had been to bangalore on a 4 day trip, wherein we did all the things tat we used to do during our ps2(internship) days in blore.

gobars dood style arrival at mekhri circle to pick me up....gabaalaa lacha (not with macha)....800 ride...ghom driving...udki's bittar face....lunch @ IndiJoes airport road....tooo much chicken kada...plate full of deserts....thakur surpassing ghom baba in royal hogging....high spirits shopping @ spencers plaza....raat ko ek range session....koi load nahin....cheers mama....cheers mamu....dinner bfc's zinger burger...blowing garam rings...mazaa agaya...sunday lunch @ raaga's indiranagar....off 2 mg road brigade road...bowling @ amoeba...juntHa out of form....hippy barista mein lacha....desperate rc.....dinner @ fooodline...egg range dosHa...ille ille...ze ghom hugging every1 in d morning b4 leaving.....sick leave...early leave....work from home....timepass at kastlevista....mr bean's holiday.....lunch @ BFC parotha and butter chicken....one by three....Johnny Gaddaar at innovative....nHice...tuesday morning....schlum bugger semenem sheikh's arrival at kastlevista...insaallaah...alam dilhilla...schlum stories....kara's chicken @ home....final moments of kastlevista stay : cricket match @ bean bags....tats it...end of d story!

India Won Because They Refused To Lose!!!

Cricinfo : "INDIA WON BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO LOSE ".

The inaugural World Twenty20 tournament has been exhilarating viewing. And on top of that Team India emerged out as T20 champions, courtesy : super cool captaincy of mindblowing 'Mahi'ya and the exuberance of youth!

As the adrenaline is running high with India's success at T20 WC , it's time to say again Chak De India .

And 'Success is the nicest thing to see', isn't it ? :D

linux at its best !!!

Yesterday, we had a tech-talk here about srp's guide to writing the best code in the world ever! Sounds funky and too technical rite?....but guys, don't worry i am not gonna impart 'gyan' to everybody by summarizing the tech talk here in ma blog.

The one-liner on srp's(Stephen Payne) t-shirt was something like this :

$ cd /home/etc/pub
$ more beer

Inspired by that, i did some "research"[:D] on the internet about funny linux commands and i came across a bunch of them. Hope you enjoy these commands as much as i did :

% cat "food in cans"
cat: can't open food in cans

% nice man woman
No manual entry for woman.

% "How would you rate Quayle's incompetence?
Unmatched ".

% Unmatched ".
Unmatched ".

% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].

% ^How did the sex change operation go?^
Modifier failed.

% If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many ('s.

% make love
Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.

% sleep with me
bad character

% got a light?
No match.

% man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

% !:say, what is saccharine?
Bad substitute.

% %blow
%blow: No such job.

% \(-
(-: Command not found.

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense
no sense in pretending!

$ drink matter
matter: cannot create

How's Life ??

"How's Life ?" , "watsup dude ?" , "kya haal hain bhai??" -- These are some of the typical chat/orkut scrap/facebook wall posts......And typical replies to them : "Life's gr88....me doing gud here...hows u doing ??" :D

Its been more than a month that i have made a blog post. And you could imagine how many of these kinda orkut scraps i would hav received and i wud hav written. This led me to dedicate a blog post "How's Life ??"
The sole intention of this blogpost is to keep my readers posted about my "How's Life ??". Well, life's been gud here in Hyderabad.Its been close to one month now at D. E. Shaw, which i would describe as a 'HoneyMoon Period' - the period of your job life when u have no work assigned to u and u'r paid to listen to presentations and technical training :) Now at the end of it, we hav been assigned our respective groups and given some mini projects to complete!!!

peeeyess 2 @ Bangalore comes to an end....

Summary : PS2 a.k.a Internships are an amazing experience!

Mentioning the summary in the beginning is spoiling the whole post. But there are reasons why I told it before I begin:

1. Because the summary is more important than the whole post (which is crap!)
   
2. Because if you don't like the summary, then you needn't read the whole post (and save your precious time!)
   
3. Because I am a thriller!!! :D

Today is my last day at Yahoo!. I had a great time in Bangalore doing my Internship. It was the perfect bridge between college life and professional life. I must say that a 6 month practice school (read internship) program, thanks to BITS-Pilani curriculum, shall hold you in good shape when you begin your professional life. The internship program at Y! started off at a slow pace, wherein they gave interns a lot of time to explore and read up stuff. Then I was assigned a research project to work on ; where there were no predefined deadlines to meet. After midsems, I was put into a live project (which is gonna be released next month) wherein i became familiar with the Scrum methodology of software development cycle. This involved daily sprint meetings and daily deadlines. In the end, it was a great learning experience.

I shall be moving to Hyderabad to join D. E. Shaw on 2nd July. This means parting away from Da Bombs (very close set of friends , I made at BITS-Pilani ; who stayed 2gether for 3 continuous years). This feels SAD....BUT It's not the end.. It's a new beginning...A new life....Cheers!!!

what.a.day!

It's a friday! We get up in the morning at around 8 am and by 8:45, we were off. Not to our office But to Inox @ Garuda's for a movie show! [:D] Basically, we were done with our end sems report submission and seminar on the previous day. So, we hit upon this brilliant plan and we bunked office on [Thank God It's Friday]. We went for a muvi called 'CheeniKum' where we laughed away to glory especially in the first half. Inspired by the movie, we then tried to test our stamina [:P] by walking to Ebony @ M.G road from Garuda's. Doodie was treating today in his very own Georgia ishtyle for his full-aid scholarship for MS. The rooftop restaurant was on the 13th floor and you could enjoy the best city views in Bangalore. We hogged like crazy over there and then we hit Amoeba,Church Street for a game of Bowling. By the time, we got an alley to ourselves, we helped ourselves to some video gaming and few Air Hockey matches. The bowling game was a high scoring affair with hemanthe (on his debut) having scored a four-bagger(4 consecutive strikes) ended with a staggering score of 170. I took the honours of finishing 2nd with 130 [:)]. Score Card. After that myself,gobar and thakur set off for S.P Road to buy External Hard Disks for ourselves. We had to rush back home after that so that we don't miss our of-late craze, the Indian Idol show at 9pm !!!

PAINTBALL

Wanna play CS ?? But NOT on a wired network.....Then u can try PAINTBALL!!! I got a chance to play this exciting sport when we (Team Pacman!) had gone for a team outing on last friday. It's a chance to shake off your boring monotonous routine corporate life and satisfy the spirit of adventure and relive those beautiful college days of gaming (seeeyes) BUT this time in a real arena!
"Go Go Go" "Team fall back" "Storm the front" "Hold this position" "Aim Headshot"
Check out : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintball for more details about the sport.
A company called 'Yuyutsa' offers a PaintBall arena here on the Bannerghatta Road. And they have a tie-up with the adjoining Confident Cascade Resort which takes care of the food and the other sports and swimming pool facilities.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amitansu/sets/72157600274662075/

wen students bcom invigilators!!!

Last sunday, we had been to Wipro (Electronics City,Bangalore) to do an invigilation on behalf of DLPD, BITS-Pilani and it was a pleasant experience (thanks to ma n70 and fever 104.0 :D).It felt kinda strange and something really different to be on the other side of an examination hall , invigilating(ahem ahem inspecting :P) students ; rather than writing the test as we have done till date! It was nHice to see questions of known subjects like CP-II, DSA and the same answer sheet that we used in our 4 yrs at pilani. It was exciting to see and observe students' behaviour during an examination.....last minute discussions before the test begins; various cheating instances; some students taking lotsa additional sheets; junta writing after the final bell; invigilators running behind students to collect their answer sheets,post exam discussions,tallying the answers with friends....n so on. And the best part was trying to recollect what invigilators used 2 say during our exams and speaking out the same in an authoritarian accent....."Please do complete all the details - Write your Name,Id,Course No and Course Name on the front page of the answer script before attempting the questions" "You have to mention explicitly the Section No on top of ur answer sheet" "1 hour over" "1 more hr to go..." "Time's up...Hurry on...SUBMIT" "SUBMIT!!!" "Do you intend to submit ur paper ?" .....and things like that ...hehe :)
We were treated to a brilliant lunch there and on top of that, we were entertained by some god-level mime by KD!!!

PICTURE!!!

Meetings :: The practical alternative to work!

( Source : Y! BLR )

Dare to Bet ??

Mighty AUS shall crush SA in today's semifinal clash in St.Lucia! wat say ??.

Bet by: amitansu Member Since: 24/4/2007 Last date to participate: 26/4/2007

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Creativity :: Is it learnt ??

This is a controversial topic! There can be two different schools of thought regarding this. But I believe (after a decent amount of research on the internet and personal belief & realization) that creativity is mainly learnt.We are not born with it.It is our ability to learn that gives the power of creativity.Creativity stems from the ability to learn from what is around us, accumulate those learnings, interpret them and apply them in some different context.I agree that creativity does come from inside BUT you have to draw on the experiences you have learnt from the world to be able to do so.No individual is instantly creative.Every intelligent agent operates on some input.We don't realize that our brain also receives input(may be involuntarily) through our eyes and ears.

Researchers in this area, Seltzer and Bentley, in their work "The Creative Age", identify four qualities that creative learners must have :

• The ability to identify new problems and define them.
• The ability to transfer knowledge gained in one context to another in order to solve a problem.
• A belief in learning as an incremental process, in which repeated attempts will eventually lead to success.
• And the capacity to focus attention in the pursuit of a goal.

Five Philosophies of Life!

"Don't let someone become a priority in your life...when you are just an option for them..... ...."

"Never cry for any relation in life because for the one whom you cry does not deserve your tears and the one who deserves will never let you cry...... ....."

"Treat everyone with politeness even those who are rude to you, not because they are not nice...But because you are nice...."

"Never search your happiness in others which will make you feel alone...Rather search it in yourself, you will feel happy even if you are left alone...... ......"

"Happiness always looks small when we hold it in our hands but when we learn to share it, we realize how big and precious it is!...... ....."

P.S : Content taken (lifted :P ) from one of the forwarded mails!
because i liked it and wanted to share it with others BUT didn't want to flood their inbox! :)

An entire day to myself...

One of the things I love to do is have an entire day all to myself. A day of rest and relaxation, a day to recharge my batteries and forget about everyone else; a day when I let go of the world of responsibilities and enjoy the whole day to myself. After all, cultivating a relationship with myself is supposed to be one of the most important things -right? So here's how I do it...

I sleep really well the night before because I know I don't have to catch the company cab early next morning and also I have nothing important/planned to do the next day. It's going to be a day of pure indulgence and if that means sleeping in or generally surfing the web or chatting/orkutting all day then so be it. There really is something magical about having a large expanse of time with nothing planned – not even one small task/obligation. I can still spend it cleaning or working or doing whatever I usually do, but just doing it because I want to feels so different.Any 'shoulds' I may have get thrown in the bin - things like 'I should clean my clothes, tidy up blah blah'. If I feel like doing any of those things in the morning then fine, but I have my own permission to just do what nourishes me, what feels good. It's amazing how much lighter I feel as I lay in my bed, a sense of excitement and freedom filling me up just like a child.I still vividly remember how I used to spend those beautiful summer holidays ,spending the whole day to myself, doing whatever i WANTED to do!

Generally,on such days,I skip breakfast and go for a HEAVY lunch ; especially chicken :) In the afternoon I may lie down and listen to some slow soothing tracks or check out the television for a moment. Or simply, lie down on my bed upside down and surf the huge resourceful internet and blog, as I am doing right now [:P] Various weird thoughts then creep into my mind.Things like what shall I do next in my life ? or rather What do I want to do next ? If I let myself go into it I usually emerge feeling wonderful. I can sense my body responding and feeling simply beautiful!.I then search the kitchen cupboards and fridge for some Tang/Rasna to make a cool afternoon drink.

That night I sleep deeply, feeling really good and special, and the next day I am ready to get back to work and into the world of other people and their demands. The fact that I have rested gives me extra energy and I usually enjoy my day.

vi.v.a go.a

Memories of the Goa Trip:
GOA BECKONS....,tickets nahin mil rahein hain yaar, gobar n ghom, wednesday > teyk it!, i m ready, office lite!, wats d budget yaarron, ATM,not all cash at one place!, volvo ac sleeper, seats exchange, antakhshari with ONLY new songs, himesh...., click!,mera bhi le yaar!!, ehh n70 me,n91 4gb,n91 8gb!!, the HALT in our journey, police investigation, finally, we reach gOa!, NEPTUNE, we meet a f.r.i.e.n.d!!!, pulsaaaaar rocks!,splendor n activa lite!, first goan food, itna sab kuch 55 rupees mein, simply beautiful!, panaji city ride, off to our first beach: MIRAMAR beach, tanha tanha, jump jump...jump in d air!!, thrills, gaja buja thrills, viva dabombs, off to DONA PAULA, dry beach, lite hogaya goa, limesoda, here comes d ferry ride errrr d feni ride, wat a enthu man!,who joins our dance thrill? ...the phoren babe, screaaaaaaaaaam bangalore!!!!, konkani dance, off to BAGA beach, beach shacks, sea food,prawns,lobsters,oysters,crab!!!, kingfish steak,mix nv sizzlers....whers d party 2nite ? on d beach shack :) , boooooooooooze, back to neptune!, every1 set ur cell alarm for 5am, finally we start at 9am!, sunscreeeen bath, ghom baba stomach upset..., newys,its DCH time, AGUADA FORT, only d poses, flickr PRO, SIX of us!, then comes ANJUNA beach, rocky beach,into d waters, thakur njoys d swimming pool :) , every beach has got its own charm yaar!,no watersports here wtf man!, off to CALANGUTE beach, d queen of d beaches,let d thrills begin...,walk against d tides,I CAN...I WILL,watersports kicks off with d waterscooter ride!,get tattooooed,hippy!!!,need body massage....,lunch > only sea fud machaa,back 2 waters..,kara n pd touch d floors,kara scared!,banana ride and parasailing,mnm single!,kArA fighting with the parachute on d ground! :),need energy man!,chillax with fruit juices n feni,back 2 waters....,nite life at BAGA!,hunt for disc/pub...stag entry!, oriya waiter n bong cook wala dinner ,encounter with ppl having dual core technology!!!, the discussion which led to a verbal fight...SMART work!,one more peg..,stop yaar! u guys hav 2 drive back, lets spend d nite here, pulsaar ride back to hotel at 4am with high spirits!, okie guys we hav 2 check out at 9am, tring tring > the alarm, get started for BITS-PILANI,GOA CAMPUS, werever we go, we see sura!!, run to meet dmk, the holes!, gals r better yaar :),unka c'not kahaan hain ????, naah not tat gud....,back to panaji!, i luv panaji,hav 2 use the reamaing fuel,shall we suck it out ?, take lite...lets go 4 gen bike ride,vroooom vroooom, CCD @ goa!, wow is now menu, final view of d beach, sea....sand....sun tats goa for u!!!, simply beautiful!, simply amazing!!, simply orgasmic :)

FLICKR slideshow of GOA pictures!

My Prediction!!!

World Cup Predictions!!!

Semifinals-

• Australia
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Sri Lanka

Dream Semi Finals-

• Sri Lanka defeats Australia
• New Zealand defeats South Africa

Dream Final

• New Zealand defeats Sri Lanka

New Zealand becomes the Champions of the 2007 edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup!!!!!

A Trip to Nandi Hills!

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

ROKR ROCKING!!!

pilani psenti!

ahhh..felt really nice to be @ home for a week...but back 2 office (that too on the very same day when i reached b'lore) is painful!!!

last week,some of my frnds visited campus for APOGEE and ghommie wrote a mail asking us whether we wanted anything back 4m campus ?

I placed my orders ::::::

BreadPakoda from ratanji

Alootiki Sandwich from munnaji

burger from pappu(iissshSKY)

fried maggi from yANC

tomatosoup from nescafe counter

watermelon juice from nagarji

malai sandwich from ucobank reddddy

chickenrice from nobles

hotpot from kapoors

spl nv chicken from gds

kaju curry from annapurna's (doooooodie's request)

curd rice and dry aloo from sharmas (for yemnm and abhi gadu)

cheeeeeeeeeeeku shake (for gobarrr)

hot gulabjamun from sharmas

gajar halwa n vanilla icecream and of course 2-3 MNB's from chimpu (The Blue Moooooooooooooon) (this is esp for kArA)

well.....i placed my orders!!!

BUT......

Can he bring us back those memorable 4 years on campus ?

Can he bring us back those late nite CS , VT , Zatacka sessions ?
Can he bring us back those midnite ANC sessions ?
Can he bring us back those 'high spirit' wing moments ?
Can he bring us back those afternoon SKY sessions ?
Can he bring us back those SAC Baddy sessions ?
Can he bring us back those C'not gambling sessions ?
n many more.........

PACMAN

ohh man!...i still remember those school days.
once a week,computer lab period (i m talking of 1994-1995).....we used to fight for a computer in the lab to play PACMAN!!!
those prizes such as cherries,strawberries,apples etc that used to pop up, which accounted for some value points....those four large round power-up objects ,tat used to provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the ghosts...:)
man...those days were simply beautiful!!!!!!!!!!

btw,i was reminded of 'pacman' coz the new project which was assigned to me 2day is code-named 'PACMAN'

office office!!

Anger!

Have you ever lost your temper? Did you yell/scream/shout at someone?

i guess every1 gets angry....n i m not abnormal...hehe!!!

Everyone gets angry. The hard part is learning "How to deal with Anger ? "
I know i m not the best person to describe these BUT i'm learning too :)

A Must Read : "Controlling Anger -- Before It Controls You" .

Speaking of Anger, I am reminded of one of the poems(tat we studied for ICSE), "A Poison Tree" By William Blake. One of the stanza of the poem goes like this :

"I was angry with my friend
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."

first post!!

Ok…here it is…..my first BLOG!!!

why did i choose "Afterglow!" as the title of my blog ?

after spending some half an hour(yes!! 30 long minutes that too during office hours :)) thinking of a title (confused as usual...), i finally decided to name it "Afterglow!" dedicated to the song called "afterglow" by INXS.
guys, i hav fallen in love withis song...esp the INXS and the sona feat one!
Here's the song : Sona with INXS 'Afterglow'
and regarding the "!" after the word 'AfterGlow' in my title, thats like the yahoo! style of 'trademark'ing things :D

btw, in the process of selecting a title for my blog, i came across this interesting site : What Do You Call Your Blog ?