Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Copy-write Shrutz :: 8:27 AM :: 4 Sneaky Remarks:

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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

The Short History

It was written in a state that might never be replicated, hopefully...a want to twist words as far as they could be!

Time From An Engineer's Viewpoint
"Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems."
-Scott Adams
A few ten thousand years ago, our forefathers lived in caves or other crude shelters. Some bright spark discovered that by rubbing two sticks together more sparks could be produced, which lead to forest fires becoming a common occurrence. High fashion consisted of the latest in sheepskin. The loudest sounds were that of thunder and the roar of a famished lion, which was good, because it was an ominous portent that they
should take to their heels. The Tower of Babel had not been built then. Communication consisted of a series of grunts and arm waving in its most rudimentary form. The only bits & bytes to be had were off whatever food, burnt from the fire, you were eating. Engineering as a science and as an art has come a long way since the Stone Age.
Take a hypothetical scenario (as of yet). A caveman is time-transported from his snug abode and brought to the 21st century. Apart from being a world-wide phenomenon and being according 'rock'-star treatment, he'd be amazed at what has become of this planet. Not in his wildest flights of imagination would he have believed what his eyes now perceive. Technology's race into the unseen hurtles along and at the helm are the
world's engineers.
From Humble beginnings:
The origin of Engineering is shrouded in the distant depths of time. But perhaps, Civil Engineering was born when the first drops of rain fell on our ancestors. They realised food was not enough, they needed shelter! Needless to say, the discovery must have been made in a hurry.
Mechanical Engineering can trace its beginning to firstly, the genius who realised fire coud be produced. We are all eternally grateful. Of course, not to forget the Neanderthal who thought of the wheel. I wonder what his thought process must have been like. "How absolutely fantastic would it be if I had a circular stone? Maybe I could roll it around." Whatever possessed him to make mankind's first invention has indeed been a great
boon for the transportation industry. We'd thank you, but we're all coughing from the vehicle exhaust.
From then on, technology has never looked back. Great cities rose, (and fell, that's different matter), Man felt a need to call someplace home and gradually relinquished his nomadic life, the earth smiled with food crops. The Egyptians realised that their Kings could come back to life, and started building pyramids in a frenzy. Since then tomb-raiders had a field day. More and more, there arose the need for these very old
professions. And they never failed the need.
Civilisations Rule:
"The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch."
-Michael Armstrong
These civilisations might have changed the face of engineering and brought it much closer to the present times. They expanded their empires and thus faced a problem of overpopulation. To combat this, they made war machines in order to kill off the surplus. The word 'surplus' would mean 'anyone not belonging to the empire' in many ancient languages.
Archimedes, one of the greatest inventors of these unsubtle war machines took a leisurely but sudsy stroll down the streets of ancient Greece, yelling 'Eureka'. He's most famous for the jokes that resulted. In midst of all this chaos, some wise Easterners discovered the number 0. Little did they know the discovery would shape man's future. Not only would the digit become the most feared by students all over the world in a matter of 2 millennia, but it would spawn the birth of computers and electronics engineers, who are mostly people who come and fix the computers when it requires more than a kick and a punch to put right. But, inspite of the business of these engineers, for many years, the status quo remained. Not much development was made, other that in the field of building places of worship or mausoleums and killing enemies in new and innovative ways in order to fill the same.
Rebirth:
Fast forward some thousand years, to one very extraordinary man. The Renaissance was at its peak, Leonardo Da Vinci was bored. He invented the contact lens, high heeled shoes, helicopter, submarine and the parachute, all in one day. Then to cap off the achievement, he painted the Mona Lisa. In the present day, we all know about his paintings because a very mediocre book has been on the bestseller list for a very long
time. We should have been 'long done' with it. But, indeed, Leonardo was the quintessential Renaissance Man and is there any doubting that he has been the ideal engineer?
The Renaissance sparked off many revolutions in thought processes. The greatest of which, was scientific thought. People began asking questions about the world around them. The questions have not yet ceased.
An apple fell on Newton’s head, due to gravity. Engineers had already known about gravity a long time ago. The Law stated “Don’t drop it. It will fall down.”
Man started looking towards the skies, but the question was not "Will it rain?" but "What is going around?". Galileo invented the telescope, and propounded an answer. The Earth ceased to be flat for some astronomers. The Church branded them all heretics, as she'd come up with her own astronomical theory, viz. The world revolved around her. 500 years later, after intense research, she came up with an even more astounding theory. The world is NOT flat! The Earth revolves around the Sun!
Some things never change. Empires will still being built. European countries kept sending out ships to conquer heathen lands. In an astounding series of errors, Christopher Columbus set out for the ‘Indies’ and reached America. That was okay, many Indian engineers make the same mistake. But this new continent was not called Columbia. Smacks of unfairness, doesn’t it? Meanwhile, Vasco Da Gama actually reached the shores of India, making the others look very foolish indeed. Colonialism was on.
Many Years Later:
Through all this awakening, people were still using lamps of myriad sizes and shapes. But, cometh the hour, cometh the minds. Ben Franklin declared his independence from Britain and her King, who thought “Nothing special happened. It rained today”, on 4th July 1776. He then set his sights on kite flying. Thus, electricity was born!
Volta and Galvani played around with electrolytes and metals. Their mothers had never warned them not to play with electricity. Thus the voltaic/galvanic cells were born. It came as a shock to Volta when he realised that electricity travelled through wires. Meanwhile faraday was playing around with magnetism and electricity. But in this age of light, most homes were in darkness. Till Thomas Alva Edison (of the immense perspiration) invented the light bulb. It was a bright idea. He then proceeded to start the first power company. Ampere found the laws of elctro-dynamics, but Ohm's thesis on Galvanic circuits was met with a lot of resistance.
Meanwhile, from electricity was born the electric locomotive. Watt's engine was transformed from a smoky steam engine to a silent and powerful machine. The smoke had been successfully shifted to the thermal power plants, which were populated by engineers.
The age of neon lights was upon us!
With the new found developments in electricity, communication engineering wasn't far behind. Gone were the days of Gutenberg's presses. Morse dotted and dashed his way through the English alphabet, and electric telegraph lines were set up all over the civilised world. Alexander Graham Bell, a teacher for the hearing impaired, invented the telephone. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Lamiere brothers invented moving pictures. Both these events led to the phenomenon of ringing mobile phones and loud conversations in movie theatres. Marconi used radio waves to transmit data. Radio was a great boon for the early part of the 20th century. Unfortunately, it didn't have pretty pictures.
The 20th Century:
The early part of the 20th century trotted in.In the 1900's, Henry Ford invented the Model T. The Industrial revolution had brought about assembly lines and Model Ts rolled off them with precision. In 1909, the Wright brothers took off at Kitty Hawk, achieving self sustained flight for 9 seconds. They did not invent salted peanuts.
Einstein found out about the theory of relativity. It was a guaranteed insomnia cure, thus being its own proof. Revolution was sweeping through the world, and in a far away country, a small archduke was assasinated. The first world war broke out. History repeated itself, engineers built better weapons and machines. The war ended in a whimper. It had been the "war to end all wars". How ironic.
Titanic had been hailed as a triumph of engineering. It sank. It was then hailed as a box office triumph more than half a century later.
The 1930's were an eventful decade, man finally took to the skies in commercial aircraft. The Empire State Building came up and was the tallest building in the world for more than 70 years, but the rest of America was "Depressed". Engineers had not much work to do.
Suddenly, the Second World War broke out. Hitler's ambitions had exceeded his grasp and concentration camps were set up. These camps were nothing to do with meditation. Meanwhile, America was working hard at harnessing the energy of the atom. The Manhattan project was success and Openheimer remembered the Geetha's words. The U.S entered the war because of Pearl harbour and in 1945, to end the 'The Great War' bombed Hiroshima & Nagasaki with Little Boy & Fat Man.
History repeats itself. Noone was content with the Atom bomb. Countries tested and retested to master it, and then moved on to Hydrogen bombs with so much power they could annihilate the entire planet. Since engineers were not concerned with irony, they went about their business of finding even worse weapons to decorate their arsenal.
The Cold War was now in full swing. This would have been nice, except that it effectively divided the planet into two and did nothing to alleviate global warming.
The Soviets finally decided the Earth was too hot to handle them and sent their animals into space.Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin followed. The Americans were dismayed and decided to put one up on the Reds and sent THEIR astronauts to the Moon. The American people then exercised their Freedom and branded it a huge hoax.
In the middle of all the pseudo wars, Watson and Crick cracked the DNA structure, spawning dreams of cloning and DNA engineering one day. The television was invented and people never stopped watching soap operas after that. Electronics engineering saw a huge advance. Cray was invented in the middle of the century. It had the brains of a modern calculator and filled a room. They found an important use for the computer in cracking enemy codes.Computer science was thus born. Today computers are smaller than the manuals for their operation!
The political scene was looking bleak. In the 1990's, the USSR fell apart and the Berlin Wall collapsed. But something even more wonderful happened. The Internet was born...
So, what will the future hold for us? Faster-than-light travel, posh residences on Mars, teleportation? Maybe we MIGHT be able to see a caveman in the flesh. Whatever it does hold, you may be sure that Engineers will always be there, to lend a helping hand to the end of days.

Copy-write Shrutz :: 3:25 PM :: 4 Sneaky Remarks:

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Saturday, January 15, 2005

Here Comes the Blog

It's been quite a long time since I have sat down to write about my life, for you people to read and then feel happier about yours: "Oh wait, at least someone else is having a worse time than I am. Maybe I am not the craziest person alive in this world!"

I kid you not... a LOT has happened in the past one week. After the last PC, (coded by seniors now forgotten!), on Sunday we had lessons in TIME. They were quite fun. I loved doing the verbal part of it.. (okay it figures, right?) Have to brush up on the Maths aspect... In TIME, we had to buttonhole KK in order to sponsor my programme, "Best Manager" for Drishti. He kept asking "What about Dhwani then? Could you say something CONCRETE about that?"
"Sir, it's in March. I have no clue. I'll ask the Union".I kept explaining!
Ahh, well, the money and the sponsorship is in the bag :D!! One hurdle down!

On Wednesday, we had our Digital Lab Exams. Alas!!! My newly found exam jinx caught up with me again. The question actually made NO sense! (refer previous blog)
PARTIAL OUTPUT! Oh! The horror! Hey, it WAS an easy circuit, right? After all, I JUST had to wire about 10 IC's out of which 1 was a counter, 2 were full adders and the rest were gates which made NO sense!!! How easy for the external to say "Generate count upto 15." and then, add "If you don't get the output, I'll fail you."
The moment I objected to the sheer lunacy, he gave me a bit of philosophy. "In Digital Electronics, you have only two states.. High or Low, Yes or No, One or Zero."
I could've 'counter'ed with "Sir, not everything is 'excess'ively black or white. There ARE shades of gray too." (oh I crack me up!)
Anyway, his need to see it on a 7 segment display couldn't be satisfied. He had to see some LED's flashing instead. Hmm, at least I didn't fail. Though, I must say for my sadisitic classmates, they kept consoling me. Their method wasn't VERY effective, though. It went," Hmm, in college you should at least have ONE suppli. Allengil oru rasam illa, alle?"

But the next day, every second sentence was "Shruti! You better study/don't cut classes. Or you will get partial output AGAIN."
Unfortunately, I couldn't heed their requests. Classes had begun. But we are having our Freshers' Fest: Genesis. I have fond remembrances of our own time at it, both in participation and conducting it. This time, since I was a SENIOR in S6, I was drafted for judging. First up, English debate.
Traditionally, not a competition that attracts many people. So , I thought, "What the heck? I'll go and come back by One."
So, there we were, ANOTHER senior in Mech called Vivek (they'll never stop coming?) and I sitting in a classroom, getting the royal treatment and there were the 'ickle' juniors coming and 'debating'. Each team for 4 minutes for both sides of the argument and we spent one minute asking questions and judging them on Presentation, Fluency, Points Q&A.. (Next up, contestants wear swimwear?)
There was ONE fly in the soup. There were 22 teams!!! The entire process shifted from class to union office to another class. It just took 3 hours, you know. And no breaks for us poor judges. The topic afforded no relief either. "Should mobile phones be banned in college?"
By the time the 2nd team was done, I knew the entire refrain byheart.
This is what it consisted of "MMS Scandal", "Missed calls", "Unknown messages", "Peeping toms", "Unsafe Radiation", "Style Factor", "MMS Scandal", "MMS Scandal", "MMS SCANDAL".... I hope you see the pattern emerge.
Being sadistic, I loved asking questions. It prevented me from sleeping when everyone was saying basically the SAME thing.

One exchange I particularly adore.
The 21st team was all voice and singular lack of points. One was particularly lucky in that he got mauled both by another-senior-called-Vivek & Sadistic-Shruti. His ending was something that drew applause from the kids around...
"Get out of college, get a job, get married, have 2 kids, THEN buy a mobile and we will talk." (about WHAT exactly?)
That kind of speech can come back and bite you in the backside, you know!
"Hello. So how old are you?"
"17."
"Do you have a mobile?"
"No"
"Do you PLAN to get a mobile?"
"Yes." With a sheepish smile.
"When?"
"In 3 years."
"Will you be married then?"
"uhm No"
"So what happens of the kids?"
"I'll put my mobile in my shirt pocket. Keep it clear off my hip pockets"
Both the judges raised their eyebrows. "So what about your heart?"
"My heart does not matter."
Both the judges were now laughing. Amid my giggles, I asked him "Well then, what IS important? Not your brain & heart?..."
"My heart is strong!"
Of course, that was just BEGGING a question to be asked, right? I didn't ask it!

After all this laughter, I set back for my class, having missed 2 lab periods. And on my mobile, what do I see? "You girl, get back into lab this instant. Or you will not get output this time also..."! (heh!) It was all cracking me up!
Next stop, Union room & PC...! And constant reminders "Shruti! Role of Engineers..." (gah!!) "Shruti have you told anyone?" "Shruti, what are you doing?"...!!!!
Some stuff has been done for the programme. Now, I am off to compile questions. And get one more judge... Got to call people... (My head's exploding!)

On Friday, we had JAM prelims & finals.. That was REALLY fun!! I enjoy conducting JAM anyday and the kids (uhm not THAT small either) were quite funny. At one point, the objections to objections (due to some weird rules) came so thick and fast, we forgot what the original objection was for, and whether to grant it or not!!! JAM master Shruti I am! I missed another class that day as well...
Okay. The reason why I keep harping on missed classes is this: I haven't really bunked that many classes in my college life *deep breath* THERE! I said it!!
The entire week, I haven't been doing anything else... too tired to! For all people who are wondering why I haven't been online!!
I was instructed to call people up and tell them about Drishti 2005... Here! I have done better! All you people in engineering colleges around Kerala!! Listen up! YOU'RE ALL INVITED TO DRISHTI 2005. It's our Technical Fest and will be held on 24th & 25th January. You may turn up, especially for BEST MANAGER, sponsored by TIME, Trivandrum!

Long blog tonight... Over & Out. I have got to work on "Role of Engineers." I've reached the Neanderthals!
The completely exhausted & ecstatic with MUCH more work to do....
Shruti
http://www.drishti2k5.org

Copy-write Shrutz :: 2:09 AM :: 0 Sneaky Remarks:

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Thursday, January 13, 2005

Life Story...!

So how DO you generate a Excess-3 and Gray output on a 7-segment display. The flawed logic, of course, is that both the codes are BINARY codes!! Bravo...!
PS: It was a rhetorical question! Though I DID get it for my exam! *lots of muttering later* I am fine!!!

Copy-write Shrutz :: 5:26 AM :: 1 Sneaky Remarks:

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Saturday, January 08, 2005

Analysis & Overanalysis!

Well, this is something that happened yesterday. We have our Tech Fest Program Committee (PC) meetings sporadically. I, being a sort of over-achieving, sincere kind of person (err ..fool). used to land up for EVERYONE of them. You look around, maybe 3 other people would be there, adjourn at 4:30 for a meeting scheduled for 4:00 to the Union room, yak about the programs and leave.
Most meetings are cancelled... That kind of got my goat initially. But then, what the heck? Most people aren't me (thank god for the world!)
The past week didn't see any meeting till Thursday, when a sum total of 5 people out of a total PC of 20 odd attended, the convenor was MISSING!... So, on Friday, I didn't come to college on account of no classes because of our Lab exams. I scrambled to reach the PC from the middle of the city, pretty much hurried up the winding drives of the college and burst into the room at 4:25 (after being told by a member, who was standing OUTSIDE, that it had just begun!). The convenor bestowed a frosty look "It's 4:30. Weren't you supposed to come at 4?"
"Oh I just came from my home."
"NO excuses. If you can't make it on time, don't come"
OH right! This from the guy who bunks most PCs, who made two of us wait outside TIME office for half an hour while he was 'on his way' from the hostel because he was SO punctual AND the mahatma who lost the list I submitted (first) to him about 2 months ago. (of rules and my subcommittee) SURE!
I tried making it a joke. "sure boss"
"It's NOT a joke Shruti. This is the PC"
Oh... hug your damn PC and...... *overpowering feeling of wanting to strangle someone*
Okay, at about 4:35, another chap sauntered in, our hero convenor grins at him and says " You're late"
"Okay"said the guy who has come for uhm, 3 PCs since October...
Well not to put a fine point to it, I was hopping mad. I don't particularly like being addressed like I am an aberrant kid. And I find it quite pathetic that a person can't practise what he/she preaches.
Since, I had some feeling of courtesy to the hero, I refrained from saying anything till we got outside and I pretty much laid it out to him. All the while, he had this sheepish look on his face...
Anyway, I am going to listen to him now :)... Can't make it on time to college at 4 from my house for the next three days.. "Whoops, I can't make it. Hope you don't mind. Bye!"
As you can see, I am still pretty riled up!

Copy-write Shrutz :: 5:59 AM :: 1 Sneaky Remarks:

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Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Nonsensical Babbling... Kindly overlook!

A few ten thousand years ago, our forefathers lived in caves or other crude shelters. Some bright spark discovered that by rubbing two sticks together more sparks could be produced, which lead to forest fires becoming a common occurrence. High fashion consisted of the latest in sheepskin. The loudest sounds were that of thunder and the roar of a famished lion, which was good, because it was an ominous warning that they should take to their heels. The Tower of Babel had not been built then. Communication consisted of a series of grunts and arm waving in its most rudimentary form.
Research has shown that the first phrase coined by the wise old men of yore was "Those were the good old days"

Sounds interesting, does it? It was the abandoned beginning of an article for our college magazine. If the lightning has not struck you yet, it was about the different phrases used by the generations of humans. For example, our grandparents wax eloquent about the golden times, ("good old days") when rice was one anna a kg, and fish grew in neighbourhood ponds. Conversely enough, our parents NEVER stop reminding us how cushy our life is. (As in) "We walked 5 km to school", "We used a slate and a pencil" (How on EARTH did they mix?). Not to mention the fact that they didn't see cars (or horseless carriages) until they were forty. Okay, maybe both they and I are exaggerating here, but bear with us, our memory isn't like it was!
Unfortunately, at that last sentence, writer's block kicked in. For two months, I stopped work on "Golden Days", and it was consigned to the deep wastes of "My Documents" (from where no document has ever returned intact) and I set my nefarious sights on more lofty ambitions, like beating the world's longest sleep record!

Then.... Thor struck his hammer one fine day.. (just a fancy way of grabbing attention)my phone rang. Not suspecting anything, I picked up the mobile..
Me: "Hello"
Voice: "Hello, Shruti? This is the Assistant Magazine Editor (AME) speaking. I want to speak about the non-appearance of the article on my desktop"
Me: "uhuh.. I... busy....uhm...work...lab..err no ideas, no language... uhm"
AME: "Okay drop whatever you were doing. I have a new topic for you to write about"
Me: "I can hardly wait"
AME: (great fanfare and virtual bursting of firecrackers) "You are hereby assigned to write about THE ROLE OF ENGINEERS IN THE PAST & FUTURE "
Me: "Err wait a minute. That's an ESSAY! Who CARES what we can do in the future or the past... Do you? Do THEY? Are you sure you want people to READ your magazine?"
AME: "Oh come on. Be a sport. Write about Leonardo Da Vinci. By all accounts, a very interesting fellow. International jokester, 'happy' personality, painter, sculptor, inventor, anatomist and god knows what else. "
Me: "I am not sure that Dan Brown'd appreciate me invading his turf. There's so much to write about Leonardo that I might as well make it Leonardo Da Vinci: The Man Behind the Shroud*" (*The Turin Shroud, not his ACTUAL shroud)
AME: "Make that your second article. Right after ROLE OF ENGINEERS"
Me: (hysterically) "I can't work with ICs and buildings! Give me humour. Give me quirkiness. Above all give me something to be awake about!" (The battle cry before Liberty, Equality & Fraternity!)
AME: "That's all very well. But do you know that this article will be the centrepiece of the magazine? It's a honour for you!"
Me: (suspiciously) "So, you didn't get anyone else to do it, did you?"
AME: (Chuckling sheepishly) "Uhm no, but if you don't write it, I will." (hastily) "But please do and it's due in the first week of 2005!"
Suddenly an idea struck me, they're going to get an essay about the role of engineers that they never bargained for... Bits and bytes fell into place.
Me: "Okay... Whatever you say, boss."
I kept the phone down and laughed maniacally.
Me: Muahahaha *cough*
(Sorry Govind! I HAD to insert that line!!)
***** The End (Or IS it?)*****

PS: This is NOT a fictional work.. All these events DID happen! Will keep you updated!

Copy-write Shrutz :: 4:41 AM :: 0 Sneaky Remarks:

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