This is what has been open in my Firefox since last week or so.
On Tuesday 23rd, sometime in the afternoon, when I was fully convinced of cherishing C++ for the rest of my life, my phone rang with an international number on the display. Is it Santosh (my colleague), no, why would he call me at this hour? (human nature - negatives come to the mind first) Oh shit! Did I do some major mistake while fixing 8354? Someone in Embraer is really unhappy with me? Did a plane crash or something?
"Hello"
"Hello, is this Mr. Singhai?"
"Yes"
"Hi Mr. Singhai. I'm calling from National University of Singapore. I'm pleased to grant you admission in NUS for MBA full-time program. So would you take the offer?"
When I said that I was fully convinced of cherishing C++, I meant that. And that's when I got into thinking should I say yes or no. (If you aren't aware of my confusions, trust me, you're better off not knowing about them. You need to search for some other blog to read.) On expressing my errr...s and ummm...s, she offered to call me the next day. But then, I decided what the heck! "Yes, I'll accept."
Was just browsing for new messages in the NUS Admits group for 2006. Got this one really nice quote! I think it's also a song called "Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann. So apt for my confusion ;-)
From a very famous speech by Mary Schmich, later popularized by Baz Luhrmann.. I quite like this extract:
"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know, didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.
Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know, still don't."
Anyway, so coming back, I resigned yesterday from Honeywell. Will be relieved by mid July. Manager's happy, so going out won't be as troublesome as some might expect. As of now the plan to stay in Bhopal for around 15 days before flying to Singapore on 3/4th Aug. Orientation from 7th. Classes from 14th.
Bought Lonely Planet for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. (I thought Brunei is somewhere in the mid-west. So kinda happy that I bought the book. At least, I won't be as illiterate as I was till now.)
Today, I've decided. No more of "helpless, not hopeless" crap. No more of hanging my head in shame in front of my own arguments. No more of useless blog posting and email chain-forwarding against government's acts.
I'm applying for a voter's card.
And those of you who want to know about it, here are few links that will help. - Voter's Guide [PDF] - This document is a small 8-page PDF (with large font) and gives a gist in case you've forgotten your Civics subject from 8 Standard.
- ECI Website - Website of the Election Commission of India
- Election FAQ
Hope this helps at least few of you.
Just saw it in the news. Laathi charge on medical students in Mumbai. (Rediff News 1, Rediff News 2, Rediff News 3, Times Of India).
I had a written the two lines above, and just found the links when Nidhi called. And, I had a long discussion with her about reservation. I was pretending to be "for" reservation while she was being herself - "against" reservation.
I was pretty angry when the discussion began (thanks to the news I saw just before the call), but am pretty cooled off now. And that proves my indifference. Selfish me!!!
So bogged down by my self, I don't want to write anything else!
I'm sitting at home, browsing the net, having a cup of sweet adrak ki chai, and coughing and sneezing my way through today. Yes, I'm down with cold.
Mom said, "you've got to do some exercise, sitting in that chair all day long in office. Why not join swimming, you like it so much." So I said okay; I had forgotten that I liked swimming but I did have some reservations. I knew I wouldn't continue it long enough. So went there only twice and started eating more cheesy pizzas (well, I started exercising you see ;-)). And here I am sitting in my almost broken chair with Benedryl and Vicks beside me.
And it's raining. A very heavy shower after scorching heat which was caused using some really advanced technology by the Bangalore IT firms. Why, simply because they wanted their engineers to sit in an AC office, hoping that they'll work.
Bangalore is heaven when it rains for the first few days. But then it becomes really messy and tragic photos start coming into the newspaper. Enough is said about Bangalore's infrastructural problems so I'm not going to comment about them here. It's been so since last few days. Sweltering heat during the day, speedy winds at around 5 in the evening, and heavy rain post that. 
I was hoping to see rainbow today as it started raining while it was sunny, but alas, I didn't.
Here's another photo I clicked a few minutes past. A stray dog trying to find some shelter from the cold shower. Sometimes, I get the feeling that life is unfair.
Last week, Pranky was here. Was so good to see him after such a long time. We think it was over 2 years. All we did during the 3 days he was here was talk and breeze (that's a new verb I invented for drinking breezer).
A bit of discussion on ekam and Pakistani bands was also on. As for ekam, one of the songs as Pranky pointed out, sounded like "one o'clock, in the night" from Sharaabi :D. I admit, I only try to be a good musician, but am not. Darn, at least I try (not that it satisfies me, but a nice argument, eh!!!).
But the most important part was the why MBA question. Damn, I'm glad that I got the rejection letter from all places. One admit, and I would've committed a big mistake (though I'm still not 100% convinced that it would've been a mistake). I hope you've understood how confused I am through the millions of brackets I've been using in this post.
Tea is over. The rain has stopped. Coughing goes on.
eer kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
beer kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
phatte kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
hum kahein chaloa hamau chidi maar aaye
There are numerous tutorials on the web about RSS feed. Almost every website that provides a feed, has a tutorial. So I thought, why not write myself one. And also, I'm using RSS on my new website and thought, I should. The disclaimer here is that this tutorial is for infants, newbees, laymen, laywomen (feminists behold), and people like my dad and not for hard-core web developers.
Let's say you are of the kind who doesn't like to read the newspaper on the shit-pot simply because it becomes too bunglesome during that crucial moment. So what you want is only the headlines and probably a few starting lines.
RSS feed is exactly that. It consists of a list of titles, descriptions, and links. To cut the crap short, it's stuff-that-you-find-on-a-website formatted in simple title-description-link format. What the stuff essentially is depends on the website whose RSS feed you're taking. For example, you can get rss feed for rediff.com's latest news or rss feed for one liner jokes from office-humour.co.uk, or even rss feed for guitar chords from chordie.com.
How to read an RSS feed?
When you ask for an RSS feed from any website (say rediff.com), you get something like "http://www.rediff.com/rss/inrss.xml". Yes, that's it. No fanfare or dough-nuts. Now, it's up to you to parse this file and display it as per your wish. But if you're like my dad, you'd be horrified to know this. So search for RSS feed reader on Google and you'll get about 118,000,000 results in about 0.96 seconds.
What is an RSS reader?
It is a software (duh!). A small utility for your desktop (for those lucky ones who have always on internet connection). But there are certain websites (Google reader) where you can choose (or give your own) RSS feeds and they'll display them in a well structured manner. Something like a personalized page of Yahoo or MSN.
How do they make the RSS feed for their website?
Well, that's for them to understand and you not to care about. But if you're really interested, read on. They publicly give a link like "http://www.rediff.com/rss/inrss.xml". So whenever they'll update their website, they'll update this file as well. What if they don't? Well, it's automated. If it isn't, then you better google for another website. The feed, by rule, ensures that you'll always get the latest content.
Is it free? If yes, why are the providing it?
I knew you'd ask this question. Yes, it's free. And the answer to why is same as why they're having their website at all? Simply put, advertisement. If I'm providing an RSS feed, people start using my RSS feed. Other people read my site's feed into another site and click to get details and eventually come back to my site. So traffic increases on my site.
And obviously you want traffic on your site, otherwise why have the site public at all?
Why is the title of this post named RSS/Atom feed, when you're talking about RSS feeds only?
You never stop asking questions now, do you? This is because to know what is an Atom feed, you need to do the following:
Copy the post and paste it into a text editor. Using Find-Replace dialog, replace "RSS" by "Atom", and you'll get an Atom feed tutorial.
Only difference is that the format of an RSS feed and an Atom feed is different. So, a pure RSS reader cannot read Atom feed and vice-versa.
And why in the world do they have two formats for the same thing?
Atom guys say it's an improvement over RSS. RSS supporters claim that Atom is bull and adding confusion to public.
Just as I like to read paper on my shit-pot and you don't.
eer maare teen chidi
beer maare teen chidi
phatte maare teen chidi
hum giraaaa bareili
An incident happened in Armenia (a country in Southwestern Asia, east of Turkey; I admit, I did not know where or what is Armenia untill I googled it.). An Indian medical student fell down from sixth floor and had serious injuries. He died due to "medical negligence". The Indian student community is protesting for justice.
Negligence would not be the right word here. Probably, gross mutilation or intentional dispatching is more suited. A medical college is a hospital in itself, fully equipped where stone thrown in any direction would hit a doctor with stethoscope. (I'm assuming a doctor can cure any type of ijury. Being a computer engineer I cannot repair the car just because it has a computer for fuel flow control. But I hope doctors are a different story.)
My heart-felt condolences to everyone close to the deceased. And to help spreading the message through blogs, my humble little 2 cents are here.
It's been some time since I wrote anything for the blog. And when I was just thinking about it, I get this mail. I would surely categorize it as the most pathetic forwarded mail I ever got. Read for yourself.
Complan
Boy - "I am a PB boy"
Girl - "I am a PB gal"
"Badte bacho ke liye complete software - Powerbuilder"
Coca cola
"Eat bugs, Sleep bugs.....Do only debugs"
Visa Card
Internet Programmer - "I got the ASP power , now u go get it!!!"
"Microsoft office - Nothing official about it !!!"
Lifebuoy
"Software ki raksha karta hein Norton Anti virus Norton anti virus hai jaha,
Software hein vahan...NORTON!"
Maggi
Project Manager - I want the code today....
Programmer - 2 minutes
"Programmer ka kam kare asaan,
Duniya bhar me hai iski shaan...
VB....VB.....VB"
Raymonds
"The complete software ....since 1802" - COBOL
Boost
Project Manager - "Power objects is secret of my program"
Programmers - " Our programmes"
Husband - 'Thak gaya hoon mein"
Wife give's him instant cofee and says
" To create instant miracle....Use Oracle
It is an insult to blogs to put this above. So you better read and get irritated as soon as possible, 'cause I can't really hold on to this shit on my blog for long.
