CISCO

I got into CISCO. Now I can't wait to get to their awesome campus. I'm really happy that the profile is Software Engineering, which is exactly what I wanted!

Unfortunately only two of us from DCE could make it. Here's to Nikhil, Vanky, Anoop, Sumat and many others who cleared the written and really deserved to be selected. Also a special mention to Uday and Utkarsh who, with their Networking knowledge and motivation really deserved this, and were unlucky in the written test.

Reliance Not-So-Fresh?

Feel tempted by the 50% sale at your grocery store or local mall? Err... some caution is needed.

Check this post about a similar sale at a Reliance Fresh in Mumbai where expired/nearly expired products were sold under the guise of a discount. Hats off to Dinesh who stood up where most people would have let it go.

Best of all, he managed to force the manager to place this sign on the products :-

Stealing from the coffee machine

How can you steal from a machine whose usage is anyway free? How indeed ... these pictures should tell the story.



We were fed up of the coffee or tea you can get from these machines. Frothy milk??? If I wanted froth I would just wash my mouth with soap.

Presenting ... the Coffee Day Express machine at Deloitte, Powai



The first step is to identify the milk container near the machine. Hint - its gonna be cylinderical.



Wait ... the actual first step is to ensure that no one is looking. Preferably have someone to stand guard.



Now you are free to steal the milk. Don't forget to steam it using the steam machine before use.



Add hot water and a tea bag or two (alternatively, espresso)



And .. its done!

Last.FM Album quilt

Here is my Last.FM album quilt - a collage of my most-listened-to music albums.

Incidentally, in the recent weeks I recieved a rejection from every place I had applied to for a summer internship - Google, Opera, CMU, IIT-Delhi - the lot. Having reached the 3rd round of interviews with google (someone described it as the Angelina Jolie of tech companies), I guess it was too-close-but-still-too-far. Fortunately, it doesn't matter too much, as I have an intern offer from Deloitte, which will be a great opportunity. Plus, the interviews at Google were a great experience. A post about those will be coming soon.

Google ADvani

"Advani for PM" is the graphical banner I see now on many Indian sites & forums. I suppose, if I had enabled graphics ads here rather than the square text box, it would have been on this blog as well.

While it is clear that he is trying to copy one of Obama's campaign strategies in the US (That is -- to use the Internet. Although, I don't think I saw google ads for Obama back then), I don't think it is clear whether it can succeed nearly as well, or even at all.

For one thing, Obama was a progressive candidate who could connect with the technology-savvy people of US, with his liberal and generally pro-science policies. Though I can't speak for everyone, it is rather easy to see Advani playing the dual game here -- ready to present different faces to the urban masses and to the orthodox "behind the scenes" agents of his party. Whatever it takes to get ahead, right?

And for another, how much does the internet really determine politics in India?

There is one thing though, although a larger fraction of the internet denizens in countries like US are liberal & progressive, almost the opposite is true in India. Either that, or the BJP/RSS supporters have a lot of free time. Browse through the comments on news sites or through forums to see that. Confusing.

Far Cry 2 grouches

Within Far Cry 2 I have found some of the best FPS gaming moments in a long time, however I do wish this game had ironed out its defects and balanced the gameplay a bit more. This is what I wish had been different -

1. Make safehouse/bus stop one and the same thing, and disable other forms of saving the game. This would give a lot more meaning to capturing a safehouse, and avoid the frustrating travel between missions. The difficulty would be much better balanced as well. Reducing the number of checkpoints would help, too.
2. The quests should be about more than just killing people to get to an objective. This game deserves it! Give us more spy missions/missions based in the town involving NPC's. After a while, all the game missions started to get similiar.
3. Use the game vehicles and buddies. Allow us to have buddies who can drive/ride on the mounted weapon.
4. The map was frustrating. Can't there be a detailed map of the whole world rather than the area you are in?

This comes late, but I just installed FC2 again and was playing the earlier missions. This is one frustrating game that could have been great!

Ebay.in Voucher Madness

I got a voucher in a mail from ebay.in .. which gives you a flat Rs 250 discount on any purchase you make. So you can order anything under Rs 250 for free. And the best part is, you can use the voucher once with every different account on ebay.

To use the voucher

1. Go to ebay.in
2. Find something which has a total cost (inc. shipping) or <= Rs 250
3. Go to "Pay using paisapay"
4. Enter the voucher ZEKK8DDZEJ

And you are done.

The validity is till 28th Jan.

Some other vouchers:

Rs.300 Off
Minimum purchase of Rs. 500
Voucher Code: 2KI9KBI3AY
Expiry 31st Jan 09

20% Off
Maximum Discount Rs.500
Voucher Code: A06LB0RN3M
valid till 31st Jan

If you read this post and bought something from ebay.in, please leave its link in the comments below.