The power of the subconscious mind..

A very weird thing happened with me last night.

I happened to like a particular song, which was regularily being played on one specific radio station, but not on others. Since quite some time, it was not being played and I was always very keen to hear it again. I have this habit of plugging in the earphones and dozing off to sleep. The same thing happened last night..

I woke up in the middle of the night to find the song being played loud into my ears! It was 38 minutes past 3 in the morning. The radio was switched on for about four hours now. My subconscious mind was processing whatever was going on, and as soon as it realized something very important was happening, it woke me up! I had heard the song after four weeks… thanks to my subconsious mind.

The fuss about Fadia..

Uptil recently I used to believe that I am amongst the very few who consider Ankit Fadia to be a cheat, who has compiled stolen and obsolete content into his book and made a fortune out of it. After a recent debate with my room-mate on his authenticity, I decided to check out Wikipedia for info…

Some of the claims made by him are very well known, like when he defaced the home-page of an Indian computer magazine and the editor offered him a job in the company. Secondly, he claims his website ‘Hacking Truths’ was adjudged the second-best website by the FBI.. (LOL!). He claims he was hired by FBI to break an encrypted message of Al-Qaeda. (Very suspicious, as the USA has its own crypto wing, NSA. And NSA is supposed to be way ahead in cryptography than the rest of intelligence agencies, forget about novice teenagers).He also claims that he had alerted a US Agency against potential hacking attempts by Pakistani Hackers.

The hacking group later rubbished his claim and instead challenged Fadia to stop them from hacking an Indian government site, which they later did. They also defaced Ankit Fadia’s official homepage, www.ankitfadia.com.

Fadia also hinted to the media that he works for the FBI (sad, they don’t accept non-US employees).

None of his above claims have been found to be true. But still this guy keeps on churning mega bucks. I wonder why so many reputed companies do not doubt his aunthenticity as a prodigy in Security…

The Orkut Controversy and the After-effects

Some pretty diasppointing stuff happened yesterday.

Firstly, I had recently enabled anonymous posts on the Orkut communtiy of our division at TSEC. This was done to pep up the interactions. But as I had feared, some people soon resorted to loose talk and started maligning people, without giving a thought to the aftermath. Even my blog was dragged in the controversy.. LOL! But, all in all in left a bitter taste in my mouth. I learnt my lesson!

Seconfly and the most important, I just couldn’t concentrate in TCO Qualification Round and hence gave up after being frustrated with what happened on Orkut. As a result, my rating crashed down from 834 to 659..

Guys please be responsible.. your activities are leaving their marks every where.

C++ Problem-Solution..

I had posted the C++ problem quite some time back. Some people tried giving cliche answers, but sadly, that won’t work if you read the pre-requisites.

Anyways here is the solution :

char* swap(int a, int b)
{
char* t;
int max, min;
if ( a > b ) { max = a; min b; }
if ( b > a ) { max = b; min = a; }
strcat(t, itoa(max)); strcat(t,itoa(min));
return t;
}

void main()
{
char * p = swap(22, 44); // The numbers are two-digit ones
int max = (p[0] – int(‘0′) ) * 10 + (p[1] – int(‘0′) );
int min = (p[2] – int(‘0′) ) * 10 + (p[3] – int(‘0′) );
}

Was a bit tricky, but c’mon, so many hints pointed at the usage of strings..

India crashes out..

Yes.. India has crashed out.

But, what’s the difference? Come on.. they are playing in a competitive arena. Sometimes you are good, sometimes not.

Apple’s new ad..

See the Windows Vista campaign and Apple’s response..

Courtesy : Ankit Sud’s Blog

Tolerance..

‘Tolerance, is the key.. to a good term work’ a second year guy had told me when I came into college.

Today, I realised why..

My life.. stuck in a Time Warp

There have been so many upsetting things happening in the past week. It has comprised of supernatural happenings which cannot be completely understood by empirical senses..

My inner-cleansing regime has gone haywire. I have resorting to mouthing curses to teachers who have been making my studies go bonkers. Have been sitting in front of the computer for three hours at a stretch to counter-balance my sorrow at being a part of the class, which is an assortment of the worst possible teachers with some extra annoying class-mates. Some of the class mates are cool, while others laugh out their lungs at their own extra Pathetic Jokes…

The Communication Skills instructor recently drove me crazy, when I had submitted a technical write-up on a washing machine, which wasn’t technical enough according to her. Common guys, get a life.. what am I supposed to write in a technical description which has to be read by a humanities teacher.. she has asked me to redo the assignment… and believe me guys… I am waiting for the revenge.. I am stroking my fingers furiously at the keyboard. The new assignment will contain technologies, she hasn’t heard before.. From quantum mechanics to help it wash clothes.. to an Ultra Violet panel which will dry the clothes.. my technical description is gonna drive her crazy..

Guyz… I am all fueled up. This is gonna pronounce death for the last remains of her intellectual prowess. Coz now, it would be so-so-so darkfully technical, that she would lose her remaining abilities to distinguish between what’s real and not.. You want a TECHNICAL WRITE-UP… wait for this Friday!

If you can’t take the heat, don’t tickle the dragon!

10 Things I Wanna Do Before I Die..

Well.. this post may seem so self-centered.. but that’s the way I am. Sometimes selfish, stingy, and god knows what not..

Here are my list of things..

1) Bungee Jumping – Oh yeah.. i can feel the adrenaline rushing through my arteries..
2) Under Water Diving – Looks good on TV, wanna try it myself..
3) Swimming with the Sharks – I have a penchant for dangerous desires..
4) Owning a Lamborghini – Everybody wants one..
5) Getting my Ph(d) from Stanford – Dr. Gaurav Menghani.. sounds cool!
6) Learning to Cook – Yes, culinary skills are very important.
7) Getting rated ‘Red’ in TopCoder – This one is to satisfy my creative hunger..
Learning French – Je sais un peu de francais
9) Owning a Chateau – My definition of luxury
10) : Some little hidden desires..

The AdSense Fraud..

Google has left no stone unturned to publicize its ‘Don’t Be Evil’ strategy. It also has claimed at every moment that its ads are not distracting because they are text based ads. But what I noticed on my previous blog (which is dead now) was simply shocking. I had got affiliated with the Google AdSense program long back and had it enabled on my blog. But, instead of text ads being displayed, there was a visual ad, which was nothing less than distracting. What should we call this.. ?