Panning flash

I hate my job. What I really want to do is make films. But they won't let me do that because I don't have talent. So watch this Flash intro.

Now I'm a centurion too

Here's a list of movies I saw for the first time in Kanpur (doesn't include the ones I had seen earlier and ones which I saw at home):

12 Angry Men
23 (German Movie)
A Bug's Life
Batman Begins
Big Fish
Bridget Jones's Diary
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
Dumb and Dumber
Erin Brockovich
Fight Club
Finding Nemo
Forrest Gump
Four Rooms
Four Weddings and a Funeral
French Kiss
Gods Must Be Crazy
Gods Must Be Crazy 2
Gone in 60 Seconds
Groundhog Day
Hanuman
Harry Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets
Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban
Ice Age
Jackass - The Movie
Kill Bill
Kill Bill - 2
L.A. Confidential
Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lord of The Rings - Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of The Rings - The Two Towers
Lost In Translation
Memories of Murders
Millions
Miss Congeniality 2
Monsters, Inc.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Sassy Girl
Notting Hill
Ocean's Eleven
Office Space
OldBoy
Pulp Fiction
Raising Arizona
Requiem for a Dream
Run Lola Run
Saw
Scary Movie - 2
Scary Movie - 3
Scent Of A Woman
Secretary
Shawshank Redemption
Shrek 2
Sin City
Six Days Seven Nights
Sixth Sense
Snatch
South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut
Spirit - The Stallion of Cimmaron
Spring Summer Fall Winter ... and Spring
Spy Kids
Strangers On A Train
The 40 Year Old Virgin
The Apartment
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
The Incredibles
The Italian Job
The Mask
The Naked Gun
The Rear Window
The Ring
The Usual Suspects
The Wall
There's Something About Mary
Toy Story - 1
Toy Story - 2
Trainspotting
Vertigo
Wall Street
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
When Harry Met Sally
You've Got Mail

Aitraaz
Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi
Dhoom
Gayab
Hulchul
Hyderabad Blues
Kya Kool Hain Hum
Laila
Main Hoon Na
My Brother Nikhil
Naach
Page 3
Parineeta
Sehar
Yuva

5 Fast ways to check Gmail

Read the other 4 ways at the site mentioned below.
I'll post screenshots of the one I liked the most, because of the speed and ultra-clean interface.

Very fast, no JS

Preview of unread mail

Quake -> Gauntlet -> Humiliation

This post is about two games of Quake, wherein Arjun and I were playing against the might (self-proclaimed) Bataka (Nitin Dahra)!

Now all those who know of my Quake skills and Bataka's Quake skills would have understood by now what the title suggests. Let me explain.
If you kill an opponent with a guantlet (the simplest weapon, infact not really a weapon) it is called HUMILIATION and doing that to players of good skill is very difficult.

However, I am glad to tell you that what you thought earlier is exactly the OPPOSITE of what happened today! You can read the earlier line again if you do not believe your eyes, but the fact is that you read it correctly.. I did humiliate Bataka by fragging him with a gauntlet. I would like to thank Arjun "Ozzy" Karande for his support (I am sure he is just as excited about it as I am) and Mausoom "hardrive" Sarkar for those encouraging words which were pinching Bataka in the a** right throughout the game.

Just to add to his humiliation, I must also tell you that he was actually defeated in a game by Arjun and Mausoom and his cries could be heard from outside the room for long after the match. The final score was 59-49 in favour of Arjun+Mausoom team.

I would like you all to reach out to Bataka and wish him better luck for the next game ;-) His e-mail address is nitinkd[at]gmail.com

PS: He did humiliate me twice after that but for that, Who Cares?

King of the World

kvarun@[~/Simulations/MPDirLess/EarlyCompletion/512KB/mipc_16] 09:49 PM $ MachineLookupCSE.sh csews 4 25
csews4 :1.75 -> 2.00,2.02,1.75
csews5 :1.01 -> 1.08,1.04,1.01
csews7 :1.00 -> 1.00,1.00,1.00
csews10 :0.73 -> 1.05,1.02,0.73
csews11 :0.79 -> 2.61,1.60,0.79
csews12 :1.00 -> 1.00,1.00,1.00
csews13 :0.97 -> 1.00,1.00,0.97
csews14 :0.89 -> 1.00,0.99,0.89
csews15 :0.47 -> 1.33,0.94,0.47
csews16 :0.91 -> 1.00,0.99,0.91
csews17 :0.37 -> 0.99,0.71,0.37
csews18 :0.26 -> 0.99,0.59,0.26
csews19 :1.04 -> 1.00,1.01,1.04
csews20 :0.33 -> 1.77,0.74,0.33
csews21 :1.11 -> 1.12,1.31,1.11
csews22 :0.00 -> 0.00,0.00,0.00
csews24 :0.09 -> 0.63,0.25,0.09

Wondering what is that? Stop wondering. I'll explain.
'MachineLookupCSE.sh' is a shell script that I have written to find out the approximate load on each machine. So the way I have called it, it tells me the load on all running machines from csews4.cse.iitk.ac.in to csews25.cse.iitk.ac.in

Why I think I am the king of the world is that I (Yes, I.. Oh yes, I) am using ALL these machines to run my simulations (for my thesis). This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have got it! HURRAY :)
No Dhiraj, no Srinu, no Bhaskar.. Just ME

You cannot understand how satisfying this feeling is. I can assure you, it is a really great one.

Google ROMANCE

Google comes up with yet another product, and a very useful one this time.
Introducing Google Romance!

With Google Romance, you can:

• Upload your profile – tell the world who you are, or, more to the point, who you’d like to think you are, or, even more to the point, who you want others to think you are.
  
• Search for love in all (or at least a statistically significant majority of) the right places with Soulmate Search, our eerily effective psychographic matchmaking software.
  
• Endure, via our Contextual Dating option, thematically appropriate multimedia advertising throughout the entirety of your free date.
  

Things you need to know/do...

Here's a very small list of things that one needs to know of or do, to get the privilege of being called my FRIEND:

1. Knowledge of and (to certain minimum level) passion for Firefox Web Browser. Craze for extensions goes without saying.
   
2. Acknowledge the fact that Linux is a great operating system and though some distributions might have some problem, overall it is shaping well to become the strongest contender for The Best Operating System.
   
3. Believe that ♬MUSIC♬ is the reason for life. Gene Propagation is a secondary issue, although it is also highly important.
   
4. Preach that The Beatles, are the GODS of music. Thy shall bow to the BEATLES!
   
5. Agree with me when I say that there might be great music bands, great songs, great orchestra.. but Bryan Adams has his own place at the top (could be shared.. I am open to that idea).
   
6. Possess "Live and Let Die" attitude.
   
7. Last but most importantly, (s)he must pay due respect to my swimming costume, more famous by the name Pink Chaddi.
   

By the way, I notice that my simulations have completed and a few machines have been freed so I better close it here and get going!

Scent of a Woman

This is almost entirely from the Delhi edition of The Hindustan Times (dated March 27, 2006 : Page 1 : Article : Male allure: Scent of a woman).
So what Mr. Vijay Dutt reports there is that it has been proven by British researchers at Cambridge University that Females are, probably, attracted to married men because of the smell of another woman's skin they carry on their skins!

Experiments were conducted on mice, and the results could be the same for Homo Sapeins. The key is the chemical oxytocin, nicknamed “Attachment Hormone”, which is released during pregnancy, childbirth and sex.

The article ends with:

So if something is rotten in your marriage, woman, blame it on your smell. Even science let the man off easily.

Symbol of friendship

DISCLAIMER: This is senti stuff. Read at your own risk! Do not bother me with any questions related to this.

Few years back, on this date i.e. 22th March, I was a witness to the marriage of one of my best friends better known as 3.8 (:P) amongst my friends at IIT-K and as Shivalee amongst my friends at BVCoE and Rosary School. What happened to me for a few months after that is a sad (and at the same time, amusing) story but that's not the subject of this post. I'd like to add here that I do not really like to discuss that story so please do not ask me about it. Here, I'll post about the symbol of friendship that she and I share.
Back in August 2000, I had my best Friendship Day with Shivalee and Namita with me. Now these two girls (women now, I guess) are my best friends and I really wish to be with them for as long as I can. That day in August, Shivalee tied a wrist-band around my hand as a symbol of our friendship and I have carried it around my wrist since that day. So far so good.
The problem, however, is that due to constant wear-and-tear, the band has gotten into a not-so-good shape and I fear that if I keep going on like this, it would snap-off sooner or later. To be ab;e keep it as a life-long memory, I decided to take it off my wrist and preserve it for as long as I can. Since today I was anyway going to call her up, I decided to ask (read inform) her about this and so I did. Guess what, I'll be getting a new one!

The entire process refreshed some of the moments I enjoyed the most. Olden times are undoubtedly golden times!

The Politics of Honest Voting

Came across a good article on Open Source: The Politics of Honest Voting
Read it when free..