Does the Schu still fit?

Yes, I've used the headline before, but this time he's back for certain. With a German team and a German team-mate to boot, not to mention Ross Brawn. Still has his red helmet though. With F1 season starting, my blog's Formula 1 score widget will once again have enough work on its hands.

I'm talking about seven-time Formula One Championship winner Michael Schumacher. Members of the Royal family of Bahrain, Sheikhs, photographers, fans all queued up at a Mercedes Benz dealrship in Bahrain to get a glimpse of the supremely confident driver who, this time around, wasn't packing just a better record than his fellow competitors, but also a number of years over the others. Having been away from the track for quite a while, Schumacher's return was least expected after his neck injury ruled out his plans to make a comeback for Ferrari. But the said injury was no match for the man and his drive to succeed, though he angered the Tifosi no end with his return with Mercedes. An irate Montezemolo even felt the need to take a not-so-subtle jab at Schumacher for this decision.

The Bahrain GP is merely a day away, and excitement is mounting with fans expecting a lot from him. The German daily Bild had "Schumiverse" splashed on the front page. They even went so far as to change the German flag to a Mercedes version :P . The man himself believes that the first race won't end in a win for them:



Mark Webber seems to concur with those views too. Webber thinks he won't be able to dominate the track with 60-70 second victories like in the past. But that's a given considering the drastic change in rules over the years. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

In Friday's practice session, Schumi was third fastest, half a second behind his fellow German racer Nico Rosberg. Whether he can better that come Sunday or whether he'll make a fool of himself remains to be seen. As far as records go, he has no equal among the current lineup of F1 drivers. However, this lineup is stronger than most that he has faced. Cars from other teams are more or less equal to the task. All said and done, he hasn't come back to the sport for something as simple as money. He's back for the love of competition, and no one can doubt what Schumacher can achieve with his tireless will to win.

Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Nigel Mansell have made successful comebacks before. There's no reason Schumi can't. I'm praying it rains soon on some F1 circuit this season just so we can see if Schumi is still the Rain-meister.

Today's qualifying will be more or less an indicator as to whether the "Schu still fits" ;)

Now THIS is news....

Any talk about a 1 crore + salary in India inevitably brings up the image of an IIM Graduate with a few years of work experience. Here, however, is one young researcher who wasn't an IITian or anything but scaled great heights with some excellent support from his university which many of us in government colleges can only dream of (what with most of our proposals meeting with a tepid response). Apparently, this guy also had a GRE score of 1540, but chose to do his research at SRM instead of leaving for the states. His list of achievements is impressive (read: IEEE papers presented at several conferences in different countries) and stuff like this should make front page news, but it probably never will.

Here's the report from DNA:

"

R Shivaraman, 24, a research scholar with SRM University, has landed a Rs1.4-crore-a-year job with an American firm for his work in increasing the capacity of computer hard drives. He holds a joint patent with another Indian for the innovation, that enables a hard drive to store 30 terabyte as against the current 500 gigabyte.

Shivaraman, who works at the Nanotechnology Research Centre of SRM, used to earn Rs12,000 per month before he was signed up by US-based Seagate Technologies as an associate scientist.

He will work on developing ultra high-density storage devices for magnetic recording after he takes up his new assignment in December. He is currently working to complete his PhD here.

His mentor and director of the Nanotechnology Research Centre, C Gopalakrishnan, said Shivaraman had been working on the development of new generation storage devices with far higher storage capacity than available today.

Gopalakrishnan said Shivaraman’s research would help Seagate Technologies use polymer templated technology to increase hard disc capacity.

“I dedicate the honour to SRM University which encouraged me at every stage since my journey in nanotechnology began six years ago. I will come back and associate with SRM,” Shivaraman said. He has sought a two-year assignment with Seagate.

Shivaraman was also invited to the IEEE International Magnetics Summer School in Nanjing University, China, in September 2009. The Chinese sent the invitation after his presentations at the 10th International Magnetics Conference in the US in May 2009. He has presented several papers in Egypt, Australia, US and Spain.
"

There's hope yet for engineers in this world where everyone wants to be a manager :P

Team Fortress 2 - A game for the ages...

My favourite game from the recent past is Team Fortress 2 (for the PC). 2 or 3 years ago, I got this gem of a game as a gift from a cousin as part of Orange Box. I’ve been hooked to it since. Having been used to Counter Strike’s fast paced and serious shooting action, TF2 was a refreshing (and much needed in my opinion) change. The strength of the game obviously lies in its classes.

The Spy’s knife, ability to disguise and cloak are all typical characteristics you’d associate with the “spy” moniker and TF2 does not give any huge advantage to its use either since the spy’s disguise fails when he’s shot a bit by an enemy and he’s revealed to the opposition once he uses the knife to backstab. Making him French was a touch of class. The Soldier has that perfect “American Sarge” look to him and the Minigun-wielding Heavy being Russian (not to mention a bit of a dunce) adds to the character. Every class has a perfect foil, a complete enemy. For instance, the Engineer might appear all powerful – what with his Sentry Guns and teleporters. But, the Spy is the answer to dominating the Engineers. No class can thus claim to be superior. The Scout’s speed balances out his relative lack of firepower. I liked it a lot that Valve spent the time hyping each class, making them correspond to different regions of the World (eg. The Aussie Sniper, the German Medic, Scottish Demoman), giving them intro videos (and they still keep it coming).

Even though the Pyro was a bit less powerful initially, the addition of the Backburner by Valve fixed it. It’s great that Valve keeps supporting the game all through the last 2 years with new updates that give the game new life and players the zeal to give new additions a go. Every advantage they give to one class is countered by another update to the other classes (the Razorback served as a defence for the sniper for instance). The Medic’s role is highly important in the battle too, with his few seconds of invulnerability for him and a comrade being able to break the deadlock in the face of an almost perfect defence. I’ve enjoyed that ability countless times while playing as a Heavy. Even as recent as this month the Soldier vs Demoman duel (along with the recent comics by Valve) on TF2 made me WANT to play the game for more than just stats. Adding an unlock to whichever class won the duel made it even sweeter.

The graphics are great even two years on, and it doesn’t take a very high-end rig to run it. The cartoony effect is not at all overdone, and it helps that every class is visually distinct from every other one even from a distance. I’ve also noticed how the Heavy smiling more as he racks up more kills. Everything is pretty easy to see and you don’t need to memorize the maps to know where the control points are or intel is. The sound is simply awesome too, with automatic cries from each character like “Fire, Fire, Fire”, “Here I come”, “God save the Queen”, “Hey Look at me ma!”, “We must stop little baby” and “KABOOM” adding to the hilarity. The sound of silly stuff happening like the Scout’s ball going Bonk on someone’s head and hitting people with the baseball bat are all so well done. Body part labeling after your character dies, using piss to put out a fire, the good looking critical hit and “Bonk” animations all add to the lolz

While in CS and other Multiplayer-oriented FPSes I usually felt frustration at dying repeatedly sometimes, here things like getting points for Revenge made it all the more fun, getting stabbed in the back is more hilarious than annoying. The addition of bases into which you can go to get away from the fast paced action and resupply quickly is also quite nice. The ability to send quick tips like “Spy” or “Thanks” to a teammate using just 2 keys from the keyboard without having a headset to communicate with has also helped me greatly.

Here's a video that runs through all the cast intros from TF2:


I love games like Halo and MGS4, but the thing is this game has always had me going back to it no matter how many times I decide “Alright I’ll go try some other game for a while”. It’s a game that one can play both competitively as well as just pick up and play for the fun of it. Every time I play, there’s some new and funny event I experience that I can't wait to tell my fellow gamers. After the endless hours spent sniping from the balcony on 2Fort, frantic overtime runs and the many days of standing next to the cart with a medic in support, I can confidently say this is the most I’ve enjoyed any game and the longest that joy has lasted.

A New Indian Nuclear Plant

A few hours ago, a new Indian nuclear reactor went online. No this isn't going to lead to a situation where we have no power cuts at all. But, still it's significant news. The second of two Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor units went critical at 9:53pm on Saturday night at Kota, Rajasthan. Designated RAPP-6, this last unit adds 220MW of power. Construction of RAPP-5 and RAPP-6 started way back in 2002-2003.

There are 2 more reactors RAPP-7 and RAPP-8 that will be under construction soon. Each will provide 700MW.


A typical PHW Reactor design, from which the most recent reactors were derived:



Here's the PTI report.

"

Kota, Jan 23 (PTI) Indias 19th nuclear power reactor went into operation tonight at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Plant near Kota, giving a boost to availability of electricity in North India. The indigenous reactor of Rajasthan Atomic Power Project (RAPP-6) at Rawat Bhata, near Kota, attained its first criticality at 21:53 hrs today, posting a major milestone in the project completion process.

Rajasthan Atomic Power Project 5 and 6 comprises of two Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) of 220MW each. The first unit, RAPP-5 achieved first syinchronisation on December 22, 2009 and RAPP- 6, the second unit, an indigenous nuclear power reactor has now joined the fleet of 18 nuclear power reactors in operation.

With the operation of RAPP 5 and 6, the installed capacity has risen to 1180MW. The power will be shared by the beneficiaries of Northern Electricity Grid.

"

Who Wants to be a Celeb?

The word "celebrity" used to mean something in the past. Today, pretty much everyone and their uncle is a celebrity. Actors, politicians, sportsmen ..... that's just the beginning of the list. They have atleast earned (in a small way, if not completely by their own effort) the privilege (if you can call it that) of being a celeb.

The majority of today's celebs though are of a different breed. Every spoiled brat with too much money, and with rich dads who let them loose with expensive cars but forget to buy them clothes of the proper size or teach them good sense, tries hard to land up in the trendiest of clubs and discos around town, get spotted by silly tabloid journos and end up on Page 3. Ask them what they've achieved and the answer can only be "having been born with a silver spoon in their mouths". The vast number of photos that populate page 3 don't deserve even a glance these days (unless you wanna ogle at a few of them ;) ) . Sadly the media cultivates the image (especially among youngsters) that it's "cool" to be part of this idiocy. Where did the desire to do something worthwhile in this world go? Is partying all that matters to people these days?

Anyway, here's a piece from an article I read several days back titled "The 10 Things I will remember about '00s". It puts things in perspective as well as I ever could.

Source: http://www.bullz-eye.com/entertainment/features/2009/ten_things_from_00.htm

"

Faux celebrities

Now, before I begin an Andy Rooney-esque rant on how there is an entire class of alleged celebrities that didn't exist a few years ago, the truth is that the origins of the fake celebrity go back decades. Tiny Tim, fake celebrity. Morganna the Kissing Bandit, fake celebrity. Kato Kaelin, fake celebrity. Today, however, it isn't just that one weirdo over there that Leno cracks lazy jokes about – it's a multimillion-dollar industry…and for what, exactly? I still don't quite understand why they matter.

Perhaps the most galling thing about this new wave of fake celebritydom is that a sex tape actually serves as a legitimate résumé in some cases. Call it the Tommy Lee Effect, (with a nod to Chuck Klosterman); no one thought of Lee as a celebrity until his video with Pamela Anderson made the rounds. He was just the drummer for Motley Crue. That tape, however, made him a household name, and would you look at that, suddenly Poison's Bret Michaels had a tape on the market soon after. Now that fake celebrity has gone supernova, both have their own reality shows, long after their bands held any chart significance.

But here's the difference between Lee and Michaels and people like, say, Kim Kardashian (And if the writer of The Superficial is telling the truth, her sex tape shows her getting peed on, ewwww): Lee and Michaels had actually done something with their lives long before their tapes surfaced. Kardashian was just a privileged party girl who hung out with fellow privileged party girl Paris Hilton. Neither Kardashian nor Hilton possesses any discernible talent; they just come from money. Which is a pretty sweet gig if you're lucky enough to be born into it, but it doesn't merit them their own show, lingerie lines, or fragrances. And it sure as hell doesn't make them role models.

And yet, people look up to them. People care about their love lives, despite the fact that a good chunk of what people read about these people in the gossip magazines is storyboarded in advance. Supermodels have blue collar work ethics in comparison to the vapidity that is the lives of Tila Tequila or Spencer Pratt. But as we continue to chase that intangible American Dream – which seems to have something to do with owning a bunch of expensive stuff – people like Tila and Spencer are pioneers of sorts. In order to be famous; you merely need to have the kind of personality that makes for good television. (And by 'good television,' we mean awful, awful television.) The more self-absorbed, emotionally unstable and immature, the better.

Take a look at that again. These people are spoiled, immature, empty shells…and they're famous because of it. Man, does that send a horrible message to the youth of America, and worse, if the comments I've read on our blogs are any indication, this message is gaining more traction than I would like. Fame appears to be the only thing that matters, and if you aren't famous, you're nobody.

Wrong. Fame does not make someone significant, and lack of fame does not make someone irrelevant. What do you want on your headstone, "Beloved husband, father and brother," or "Once famous for doing nothing"? If Spencer Pratt dies tomorrow, he's getting the latter. That is no way to live your life, people. And while we're discussing blog comments…

"

Staying on this issue, there's a very funny site called HotChicksWithDoucheBags.com whose the author DB1 has made it his mission to capture images of douchebags (a.k.a guys with nothing to do but look like fools and hit on women at clubs) and make fun of them with some awesome commentary. If you lack a sense of humour or you're the conservative kind (or if your mum is looking over your shoulder), I beseech you to avoid the site. Else, do give it a go.

To Telos arhizi

That means "The End Begins" in Greek. Now with 2012 and other "disaster" movies out and doing their rounds, y'all might think this is about the impending end of the world.

Worry not, these words just give the beginning lines from the game "God Of War 2"'s soundtrack.
They actually go (till 2:00) :



Why am I going to all the trouble of posting this you ask? Well, fact is someone took it upon themselves to put up "misheard" lyrics for the same. Extremely funny. They're in the next video with appropriately nutty visuals too.




This is one of those parody videos where you the misheard lyrics sound pretty real unless you've actually read the original lyrics.

Chocolate Crazy in Chennai!

Made it to the new branch of a little (but very pricey, upmarket) chocolate dessert cafe called Sandy's last weekend. Wrote a review about it on burrp.com. Here it is:

"
First off, finding this place is not difficult if you know where to look. Just opposite Taj Coromandel there's a road going in. Follow the road and you'll find Sandy's on the left side opposite "Timber".

Small place, would probably seat around 10 people. But well kept and neat. The main course items (of course, not important) are written on a board and you can order them.

We had Bassa Fish with Pistachio, Carribean Chicken with Salad and Waffle Cake Toast. All 3 tasted very good, though the last one was a bit lacking when it came to quantity.

Moved on to the real deal, the actual main course. Was unable to order the "Ultimate Sin" , cos they didn't have it today. Gave the "Pick me up" dish a try. You may or may not like it depending on your taste for alcohol. But it was alright. Sampled the "Everything But" and "Funky Monkey". Both concoctions of chocolate that will satisfy anyone with a sweet tooth ten times over, and give you a heart attack with all the whipped cream on it. It is pretty much the next taste of heaven I'm having after my time visiting every Swensen's parlour I could find in Thailand. Both came with a shot of chocolate sauce and a choco-chip cookie.



I sincerely ask that you give "Everything But" a shot. Whipped cream, dark truffle, fresh chocolate cake, vanilla bean icecream.... my god the list of stuff in it is endless.

Overall the food's really good. Quantity might be a bit on the lower side for certain items under the "Feel Good Potions" part of the menu considering the price, but the high pricing is expected considering the locality.


I actually went to Sandy's since I heard about this branch opening on Burrp. Will definitely return another day.

The only reason I'm giving this 4 stars on 5 is because they should have one staff member always in the dining area. We felt there was no one to take orders the minute we wanted to order sometimes. And no one was there to hold the door open or say thank you when we got up to leave.




I've uploaded a picture of the seating and "Everything But". Do take a look and stare in awe at this marvellous mug of chocolate goodness.

As for parking, I suppose you could put 2 cars inside the building's parking area comfortably.

"

You can read the review at it's source here - Burrp Chennai