Nerd Talk

Some time back, one fine day, Mr.K happened to categorize me as a nerd. When asked to justify, he replied that reading Wikipedia, being superficial in sports, and being my usual self in the class were characteristics that had earned me the rather infamous title. Although I protested by citing our movie, music and other "Ornithological" discussions, that cap was there to stay...

This morning, I was going through this month's IEEE Spectrum (alright..you may label me a nerd at that), when I saw this article dedicated to people of my kind.."Homo Nerdus" reads the title.
To my surprise, people write books on nerds!! The very first quotation reads,

"Nerds are the ones who don't go to the party so they can stay at home and do homework;
Geeks bring their homework to the party." - David Anderegg, Nerds:Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them(2007)

The rest of the article introduces some very nice words into the existing vocabulary :

The population of nerds taken as a whole is called nerdom.

A person's nerdy traits and characteristics represent their nerdity.

Any long and nerd-oriented activity is known as nerdathon.

If that activity happens to be a computer game or LAN party, its called nerdstorm!

Rap with lyrics relating to computers, technology and engineering, comes under a genre called nerdcore/geeksta (from gangsta)

Any town or suburb populated by a sizable number of high-tech workers is called nerdistan

The emplyees with vested stock options in successful tech start-ups are called millionerds or, if they started the company, entreprenerds

Despite being considered an insult for nongeeks, the word 'nerd' is an identity for one. Nerdhood is his character of which he's proud of and he knows that living nerdily is the best revenge! So, when he hears the word 'nerd' being tossed around with reference to him, he flashes his geek-god looks and turns back to his obsession while telling it to himself,"One day, nerds shall rule!!".

My Professor's Smart!!!!

Ok ...this one's a non-technical post. I'd like to dedicate this post to one of my teachers at Fr.CRIT. I'm not too sure if I'm ever going to write a 'Thank you' letter to these favourite professionals of mine, but some of its contents would be a modified form of this post.

Today, day three of the preliminary exams, my dear friend Fish happened to forget his calculator back home. Now fish's character isin't new to us. That man at once exhibits more craziness than me and very often also exhibits a studios part of him; nonetheless, not unfathomable...now, upon discovering the absence of his calculator, this man(.....) requests me to enter the department and request the teachers to lending a calci..

Enter Mrs.Mini Rajeev, our Power Electronics prof. and undoubtedly, one of the smartest people around. Within the next 45 seconds, she says something, which would otherwise pop out from the mouths of any of us fellows,"If Eldrich forgets his calculator, I can understand, howcome you did it today?"!!!!

I had no idea how a teacher can read her students' minds after having taught them only for a total of five months...that too, to an extent so as to understand what silliness is attributed to whom!!!! That was simply beautiful and....natural

That incident hapens to be fresh (just this morning..). Mrs. Rajeev has many such feathers on her hat...like:

• The day she caught me signalling something to Mr.Newase and the subsequent leg-pulling I was subjected to..


• The times when she busted Mr.Labroo's plans of escaping her lectures..


• Her smart and very much hilarious comments upon the class's response... etc...

Of course, there are events which my bro recounted to me; unfortunately, writing all that here would become extremely time consuming, and I'd like to spare myself the pain of having to type on this DUMB keyboard....

Till the next post...ciao!

Holiday...

It sort of feels stupid when you get back to typing things after a month, but it was something that i couldn't help much...my PC getting busted and a month-long series of examinations were the chief culprits responsible for this huge a gap. The best solution to all that crap was getting out of it, and I did the very same as soon as my exams got over...ran off to The Andamans. For folks who don't know what they are, they're a beautiful group of islands off the western coast of the country; picturesque beaches and islands and to top it all, an absolutely tension-free tropical climate!

The place was so damn good, despite my horrible cold I was able to enjoy it thoroughly. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands, as they're known officially are classified as a Union Territory. The capital Port Blair is the most populated place. A large faction of the populace comprises of Tamilians and Bengalis; I'm not sure of the exact distribution, but every second buy you meet is a Bengali and the guy after him is a Tamilian. There are a total of 570 islands of which only about 40 or so are inhabited. The islands are inhabited by different groups; the Shompen, Onge, Jarawa, and the Sentinelese. These tribes are almost on the brink of the extinction(especially the Onge who number about 97 only), but the're preserved thanks to the govt.'s initiatives.

I cannot write much about the history or about the above mentioned tribes because that wouldn't be the best way to respect either. To talk of the beauty around that area, the islands are a must see; at least once in your life...the place draws huge crowds of all kinds, honeymooners, families, foreigners...everyone. The white sand, blue sky and green waters are a wonderful treat for the eyes and the tropical climate is pretty refreshing... I think, more than my words, the picture could throw some light on what I'm trying to convey...

This Tropical Retreat was followed by witnessing The Great South Indian Wedding.....which involves usage of a 'military bugle' and 'military drums' for the entertainment purpose..I can assure you, that's loud enough to wake up the dead! Now back home, the college here's doing the best it can...expect frequent posts...ciao!

Entertainment for the Geeks...

Check out these wonderful videos...sure to please Electrical Geeks..

This one's about a 500KV line when opened on load...





This one's about how a transformer burns in the event of a short-circuit...

Talk of DC Machines!!

For all the difficulty in that goddamn subject called Electrical Machines, I think this video I got from metacafe gives a good feeling about it...

G-CON is the G-force control technology. The impact absorbing body structure of Honda cars is designed in response to the need to soften the impact of a collision from any direction.

To fight rear impact, the fuel tank has been placed beneath the front seats of the Honda City ZX - the safest area in the entire vehicle.

As a protection against front impact, Honda has used arch-shaped front side frames. This dramatically improves absorption of collision impact and helps to reduce deformation of the passenger compartment.

To withstand side impact, a floor cross member is located directly beneath the center pillar, without being offset.

That means the collision impact is largely absorbed by the floor. This helps protect the fuel tank and reduce passenger injuries.

With this post, I end my panegyrics of Honda's technologies (much to fish's relief...?)

The i-DSI engine..

Honda's intelligent Dual and Sequential Ignition (i-DSI) engine is the second i-Series engine, next to i-VTEC, that employs compact combustion chambers and two spark plugs per cylinder with individually controlled ignition timing for more rapid and complete combustion.

The purpose of the i-DSI engine is to achieve rapid and complete combustion. Narrower valve angles and other refinements have been employed to make the combustion chambers as compact as possible. The i-DSI engine employs an innovative twin spark plug system (two spark plugs per cylinder) for maximum combustion efficiency. In addition, the combustion chamber has been engineered to promote greater swirl of the air-fuel mixture.

The intake manifold shape has also been shaped and its length optimized. This results in optimizing the combustion process as a means of achieving high performance, high fuel economy and low toxic emissions.

Other refinements include world-leading friction reduction technology utilizing molybdenum-impregnated piston skirts, a rear-port exhaust system and an oblique-feed catalytic converter. And though the 1497 cc long-stroke engine has two valves per cylinder and only a single overhead camshaft, its output is a respectable 77Bhp at 5000 rpm with 125 Nm of torque peaking at a low 2700 rpm.