ICWCN 2003 was a complete success, apart from the fact that the students of SSN still haven’t got their conference proceedings and tutorial materials. Hopefully, we should get it within a week or so.
Two days before the new Harry Potter novel was supposed to be released, a friend mailed me a Word document saying that it was an e-book copy of the book. Just two days ago, another friend mailed me another Word document saying the same. The first document had about 100 pages, the second - about 380.
Considering that Rowling’s novel was over 750 pages, I first thought that whoever had created the 100 page document had just summarized the book. I read through it and found it pretty enjoyable. I was right though, it was almost like a summary. Plus, there was no mention of anybody dying, with the exception of a Death Eater, who’s name was not mentioned at all. I knew instantly that this was not the original book.
When I saw the second document, it was about 380 pages, about half the size of the original. I assumed that taking paper size and font size into consideration, the electronic copy would be about half the size of the book. I thought, this would be it. But, on the other hand, it turned out to be rather corny, with a whole lot of things I’d rather not mention. Not really Rowling’s style I think. However, somebody did die, conforming to Rowling’s statement. Not somebody really important in my opinion, but somebody that we do know. This book was, therefore, more near to the original than the other.
It does amaze me, however, that people are trying to become another J. K. Rowling by copying her ideas and basic plotline. Both books had the same idea, that Harry was … oops, almost gave away the secret! But the books followed a different storyline altogether, which, definitely is not the original. I guess I just have to get my own copy of the printed book to read it.
ICWCN 2003 @ SSNCE days 1 & 2 were just great. The new auditorium is way too cool. With a seating capacity of about 750, centralised AC, dynamic lights, etc etc etc, you’d think you were somewhere in New York or Sydney and not even close to Chennai. One would never think one was in a college auditorium.
Back to the conference, Ajoy & I are volunteers for the program scheduling committee. We were assigned to Hall I for 2 sessions out of 9 (3 in Hall I). One session was on coding techniques, that was yesterday. Today’s session was on Wireless networking. Both sessions went of quite well without any mishaps. Tomorrow, we have a tutorial session.
I’m still wandering without a copy of the conference proceedings. Although I paid Jawahar the full amount, I’m yet to get a copy. Gayathri said that we’ll get a copy later. They gave me a copy and took it back later saying that SSN students will get it later. I’m going to tell Gayathri tomorrow to either give me a copy or to refund my money.
WOW!!! The new Blogger interface is just too cool! Wonder when this came up.
Back to my news, I just came back from the university. I had gone there to give my application for xerox copies of my answer papers. They say that the copies will come within 15 days. Knowing University of Madras, the copies will come just before the last date for submission of revaluation forms. They are never fast.
It’s been a long time since I came near my website. I’ll be taking charge of Hall 1 during the conference. However, I want to be present in the main hall during day 2 since that’s when they are having the wireless security session. Let’s see how it works out.
I’ve finally managed to extract the rules.ini & rulesmd.ini files for Red Alert 2 & Yuri’s Revenge. They are available here in their original form, no modifications, no enhancements, nothing. Those are for you to do and these files are provided as a convenience to those budding modders out there. Which brings me to my latest news, I’m working on a new mod, terribly unbalanced as usual. I worked on it using the old Tanya’s Revenge mod as a base, but now, I have to create the new, fresh file. I completed both the Allied & Russian campaigns for RA2 using this mod, both within 3 hours. In fact, I completed some missions in as low a time as 1 minute. Try it for fun, not for real strategy.
The conference is drawing closer. I plan to sign up for both the conference and the tutorial session which will be held from the 27th to the 29th of this month. Eminent people from the field of wireless communication are going to present papers on the 27th & 28th, and a tutorial session has been organized on Sunday the 29th. Unfortunately, Jhunjhunwala is not participating in the tutorial (although whether he will be participating at all in the first place is a big ?).
Now the college is going for NBA accredition, and I have to give in my filled biodata form tomorrow to CTV. I completely forgot about it in the aftermath of the placement. Oh well…
I’ve finally gotten the PHP scripts to start working again. So now, my work is to sit down and reinstall the dumb OS. It seems like I have to something like this every few months, otherwise, my system starts slowing down like hell.
Well, it seems that HCL Technologies is coming again to SSN tomorrow, but this time, to take MCA students. Rather sudden announcement for them though, as they got the news only yesterday. Still no idea when the other companies like Cognizant and Tata are coming though.
Yahoo!!! I’ve been successfully placed in HCL Technologies. It was an absolutely great day yesterday, well apart from the fact that I came home only around midnight, the interview having gone on till 10pm. Nice…
Well, we’ve got the application form but we still have to discuss this with our HOD, and that’s only on Tuesday. HCL is coming to the college for a campus test. They’ve said that in order to write the test, you must have a minimum of 65% aggregate, and no arrears. The college has managed to change it to no standing arrears, so now a lot more people can write the test. Satish & I are writing it with special permission from D.K. Narayanan. He told us to write the test, then he’ll talk to the people concerened. Let’s see how it goes.
My system is slowing down day by day. I have absolutely no idea of what’s going on. Maybe I need to back up everything to CD, format, repartition and reinstall.