Just a passing thought 01......

The French President's girlfriend chooses not to visit India with her boyfriend. Did she also not accompany him on his visit to Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia, FYI is a country where rape victims get punished for being raped.
Hmmmmmmm!!!

Kaan ke neeche

The following is an excerpt of a the typical conversation which Engineering students engage in after having bunked their lectures.

Dr. Randy Pausch

Download

The "Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch - Sept 2007
Internet Archive
MP4 format [256Kbps] (256MB); MP4 format 64Kps (104MB); WMA format (265MB)

"Time Management" by Randy Pausch - Nov 2007
Internet Archive
MP4 format 256Kbps (214MB); MP4 format 64Kbps (88MB); WMA format (357MB)

Dr. Randy Pausch – the ONE person who has been responsible for changing my life, my outlook and approach towards life, in ways for which I shall be eternally grateful and indebted to him. After drifting around aimlessly in life for some years now [metaphorically speaking], chancing upon his lecture, to me, has been something akin to a drowning man receiving a rescue rope to hold on to. I now feel as if I have been granted a fresh lease of life with new and concrete purpose to it. With this realisation, I now have a lot of lost grounds to cover, which I have already begun doing in the right earnest and spirit. But before I proceed further, I would like to make use of my blog to pen down a few words about this amazing person.

Dr. Randy Pausch, born on the 23rd of October 1960, is a Professor of Computer Science at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a leading light in the fields of Virtual Reality and Human-Computer Interaction. Dr. Pausch completed his B.S in Computer Science from Brown University in 1982 after which he pursued his Ph.D. in Computer Science from CMU, which he completed in 1988. After this, he has held teaching positions at the University of Virginia and Carnegie Mellon University (current).

Along with his teaching position at CMU, his services have also been sought by the some of the biggest industries like Walt Disney Imagineering©, GOOGLE©, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center©, Electronic Arts etc.

He is also instrumental in developing Alice©, a SDK that takes a GUI approach towards teaching people programming skills. He is also the co-founder of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) .

He has also authored books and his papers have been published in some of the most reputed and widely-read journals. In recognition of his work, he has been bestowed with honours widely considered to be the ultimate in the field of Science and Technology.

On 18th September 2007, he delivered a lecture titled ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’ at CMU as part of its lecture series titled, ‘Journeys’ (previously called as The Last Lecture). Using his life as the example, he imparted extremely significant and poignant and life lessons to an audience of 400 people. His on hour lecture was peppered with humour throughout which emphasised the points he was making at that moment with the utmost precision and effectiveness, the highlight of which being that he performed push-ups in front of an audience that included some of the who’s-who of the Engineering industry, he himself being one of them. At the end of the lecture, it was announced that Electronic Arts would be awarding scholarships to girls who pursue their education in the field of Computer Science, a matter that Dr. Pausch strongly stands for. CMU’s president Jared Cohen then announced that a raised walkway would be constructed that would join CMU’s new Computer Science building with the University’s Center for the Arts. It would, in effect, be a literal representation of what Dr. Pausch achieved through the Entertainment Technology Center. The lecture was subsequently uploaded on Google Videos for viewing online, where it created a records of sorts, where it was viewed a more than a million times within the first month of its upload. He has subsequently been invited to a number of Television shows, where he was requested to give a reprisal of the lecture. He has also been widely reported in News all over.

Later on 27th November 2007, he was invited to deliver a lecture on one of his pet topics - Time Management at the University of Virginia, a place where he had taught earlier. It was attended by around 800 people. Being that first one to admit that most of the advice and tips that he was about to disseminate had been picked up by him from two books - The One Minute Manager by Dr. Kenneth Blanchard & Dr. Spencer Johnson and The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey, he went on to give another highly effective and entertaining lecture on managing ones time in the most optimum of manner and getting the maximum work done in the least amount of time. He explained extremely practical and handy ways of achieving these, which if implemented by an individual would surely enable the person to do the same.

In recognition of his achievements, the city of Pittsburgh has declared that the 19th of November as the Randy Pausch Day. He has also been invited to play a role in the upcoming Star Trek movie scheduled to be released in December 2008. He has already shot for the movie and though he admits that it is a bit role in the movie, you can be assured that somebody will be watching his first Star Trek movie that day at the cinemas. Publishing house Hyperion has also bought over rights to publish a book about him titled The Last Lecture, which would be co-authored by Dr. Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Zaslow. He has been paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish this book. It is rumoured that the book will also be made into a movie.

He is married to Mrs. Jai Glasgow Pausch and they have 3 kids – Dylan (6), Logan (3) and Chloe (2).

Dr. Randy Pausch suffers from Pancreatic Cancer. On August 15th 2007, doctors announced that he has 6 months of good health remaining after which his health will start deteriorating due to the effect of the Cancer cells. He is currently undergoing a treatment known as the Palliative Chemotherapy, which will probably give him around 2-4 months more of good health.

It is only for moments like this, when I desperately want to believe in the existence of a higher authority to which I could plead for a miracle. Events like this make me want to believe. I hope a miracle does occur.
GODSPEED


Watch it online

The "Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch - Sept 2007
Google Videos
Viddler
Vimeo
Blip.Tv

"Time Management" by Randy Pausch - Nov 2007
Google Videos
Blip.TV
Viddler
Vimeo

External Links

Dr. Randy Pausch’s official webpage
Wikipedia entry
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN)
Lustgarten Foundation

Some of his other lectures and presentations

"The Interdisciplinary Challenge of Entertainment Technology" by Randy Pausch - Oct 1999
"A dedication to Randy Pausch" by the "Building Virtual Worlds" CMU class - Fall 2005
"50 Years of Computer Science Innovation" by Randy Pausch - Apr 2006
"Building Virtual Worlds" by Randy Pausch - 2005
"Building Virtual Worlds" by Randy Pausch - 2004
"Building Virtual Worlds" by Randy Pausch - 2003
"Building Virtual Worlds" by Randy Pausch - 1998
In case of a broken link, please do let me know, so that I could do the needful

www.shubhspace.co.cc

OK!!! I now feel like Will Smith in the movie I am legend. I have now registered for a getting my own free second-level domain name through co.cc. So now the link to my blog is www.shubhspace.co.cc.
If there is anybody out there who has got enough time to waste that he/she visits my blog (just kidding ;)), please make note of the fact that the new url to my blog is

www.shubhspace.co.cc

Anyway, even if you type in my old blogspot link, you shall be automatically redirected to this site (a million thanks to blogger/google)

Please note that without adding the www, you will not be able to access the site.

GODSPEED

pop review: Motorola W180

After almost 4 years of flawless performance, my Motorola T190 finally stopped working last month. So I began my search for a suitable replacement. I was essentially looking for a handset, which could operate in a GSM network, which had all the basic features along with some that I would find useful in my daily life. After doing a bit of searching around, I finally zeroed in on Motorola W180 as the replacement. Having spent around a month playing with it, I finally brought myself to write down a few words about it.

Having labelled it ’Motoyuva’ in India, it is quite evident that Motorola is targeting a younger, college going customer base with this handset, ’yuva’ meaning youth in Hindi. This phone is essentially meant for an urban, college going individual who wishes to carry around a decent-looking handset with some useful features, without causing a severe dent in his/her pocket (or the parent’s pocket for that matter). In other words, a handset that looks more expensive than it actually is and satisfies the requirements of a college student. Does the W180 achieve it end? Read on to find out.

Packaging

The packaging is simple and functional. The package comes with small booklet of 36 pages as the instruction manual. Compare this with the around 70 pages booklet that came with my T190, it may seem strange. But then you must also consider who this handset is being targeted at – a modern, tech-savvy young individual, who prefers learning through exploration rather than being handed out pre-digested information. So in light of this fact, the booklet seems to adequately inform the user of the handset. The package also contains a handset charger and a headphone + microphone. They have also provided a sponge ear pad for the headphones; something that is quite thoughtful and necessary.

Features

The W180 is a candy bar shaped phone with an all plastic body. It is currently available in only one colour – black, which, I think, looks quite sleek and elegant. Instead of providing keypad made of a different material, the keypad is etched on the plastic surface of the front panel itself, a poor imitation of MotoRazr’s keypad, though on first appearance it does not look too bad. In my opinion it is also a cost cutting measure, since they could totally eliminate the cost of providing a more conventional keypad, which would have increased their production cost in this case. Another cost cutting measure has been the back panel from where one may access the SIM card and battery. Instead of the conventional spring-loaded locking system, the T180’s back panel’s locking system is more reminiscent of the panel covering the battery chamber of a Television’s remote control.

Motorola is marketing the handset, laying special emphasis on the handset’s music features. This is essentially provided through the handset’s ability to tune into the area’s FM radio station. Up to 9 stations can be preset on the handset, with the ability to name the respective stations. The handset comes with speakerphone features and the radio can also be heard through this speaker. However for some strange reason, you need to keep the headphone plugged into the socket even if you are listening to the music over the handset’s speaker. The handset comes with an alarm feature, which students would find quite useful. Another useful feature is the ability to use the handset as a stopwatch, something that students of Science and Engineering will find especially useful while conducting their experiments during practical. The handset also contains a calendar, in which you may input tasks or event for a particular date – sort of a handy planner. The handset also has a vibrator mode. The handset comes preloaded with 35 polyphonic ringtones, though there is no provision to add additional ringtones currently available. The handset has a mini-USB slot, though they haven’t provided a cable for the same. The handset is to be charged through the mini-USB slot. According to Motorola’s website, the mini USB slot, apart from charging, may also be used for flexing, i.e., upgrading the firmware, if any is released by the company. The handset also comes pre-loaded with 3 games. Apart from these, it contains the other standard features like a calculator, 500 phonebook entry capacities and 700 SMS capacity. One can also send SMSes in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu (a feature that would be found only on the handsets being shipped to India), although I admit, I am yet to use this features personally.

The handset incorporates in it the CrystalTalk™ technology, which it claims improves the clarity of the sound heard.

Performance

The absence of a more conventional, slightly elevated keypad reduces the tactile feel of the pads. It works well in a higher-end phone like the Razr, which has metallic keypads. But in the T180, the keypad etched on the plastic panel tends to hamper the typing ability of an individual (read SMSing). This is a major drawback, since an average Indian youth sends out a lot more SMS in a day than make voice calls. However, with time, as I have found out, one would be able to master the art of using this keypad. Still, a more conventional keypad would have definitely appealed to more prospective buyers. The sound clarity and volume is both quite exceptional, especially the sound from the speakers, which is quite loud. The sound from the headphone is also good and quite loud, which can be controlled through the volume control. The colour display of the handset has around 170-172 degrees of viewing angle in indoor conditions. However this takes a hit when taken outdoor where besides the viewing angle, even the normal readability of the display becomes a bit difficult. The hands-free feature also works quite welll. Even while I was standing on a busy road, the person who I was talking to was able to hear me quite clearly. The plastic panel of the handset is a smudge magnet, with my fingerprint covering it all over in no time. The interface seems adequately fast, although sometimes it appears not to respond to the press of a button, something that could be because the key may not have been pressed properly – fallout of the plastic-etched keypad used by Motorola. The one touch button used to invoke the Radio is a convenient feature.

The handset is powered by a 950mAH Lithium-ion battery. The handset needs to be recharged every two days, which, considering the fact that the radio is run continuously for two hours everyday, while I go for my evening run and have an average talk time of 30 minutes a day and send 6-7 SMS-es, speaks quite well of the battery’s performance. The construction and locking mechanism of the back panel does not invoke much confidence in the event of it falling from some height. One has to be careful not to drop it. In the vibrator mode, having experienced the bone tingling vibrating of my T190, I expected the handset to vibrate more to notify me of any incoming call or message. However that is a minor matter that can be easily overlooked without any adverse effect (my friends who used the handset did not find the vibration any bit less than their own handset’s and were every bit satisfied)

In due course of time I expect some unofficial applications (read hacks) to be developed for the handset which would enhance the W180’s functionality, which can be transferred through the mini-USB slot provided.

Price

The Motorola W180 is priced at Rs. 1900, though I was able to purchase it for Rs. 1700 at a Subhiksha store.

Positives

• Price

• Sound clarity

• Volume

• FM Radio

• Nifty Tools – Alarm, Stopwatch, Calendar

Negatives

• Keypad

• Inability to listen to the radio without plugging the headphone, even while listening to it over the speakers

• Back panel covering the battery and SIM card

• Absence of mini-USB cable in the package

Conclusions

Considering the price, I must say that Motorola has come up with a snazzy looking handset with credible performance and some useful featuresthe, keypad notwithstanding.Having said this, I am sure that this keypad would last a lot longer than the 4 years that one needs to graduate, thus ensuring that it would serve a student well through his/her student life, after which one could easily afford to purchase a more feature-laden handset with better build quality.

So if you are a student who is about to enter the hallowed portals of your college and now looking for a handset to flaunt around without burning a hole through your parent’s pocket, I suggest that you go for the Motorola W180.

P.S. Motorola has also introduced a handset, the Motorola W175 which does not have a FM radio receiver, but is similar to the W180 in all other respect.

Some high-resolution pictures of the handsets (courtesy Motorola)

Motorola’s W180 page

Some more information about the Motorola W180

First on GOOGLE search!!!!

Whoooopeeee!!! I just found out that googling the term Psycho-somatic disorder of the upper lymph nodal vertebral cranium artery will throw up my blog as the first result. Add quotes like, "Psycho-somatic disorder of the upper lymph nodal vertebral cranium artery" and you will have only my blog as the result.
I guess then, that it is time to get going and come up with more such nonsensical terms and conditions to get my blog as the first result in at least some search query; queries that no one would probably ever think of in the first place.

GODSPEED

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a very happy and ROKKIN NEW YEAR

Rock On!!!!