YuviSense: Codin Kid

I had a sneaky suspicion…

…which I confirmed a few minutes ago:

I’m the first Indian on the Techmeme Leaderboard! Yay!

You can grab the CSV file showing all the sites that have been on the Techmeme Leaderboard, for “atleast” one day. I checked all the sites manually, and The Statbot is the only Indian site there. Yay!

I’m making a big fuss of this small thing, simply because this came at a right time – I could present this too as “proof” of extracurricular activities when I’m submitting my College Application to SSN.

Update: No, Om Malik doesn’t qualify – He’s an American Indian (Update #2: NO, I didn’t mean a Native American – In India, Indian-born American Citizens are called American Indians )

This year was an extremely, needlessly stressful one for a lot of people, involving myself. The reason being the +2 exams which determine whether you go to a college where the professors think that Windows was written in VB or to one where the professors argue with the students about the advantages/disadvantages of microkernels vs monolithic kernels. However, some fella with a brain the size of a rat’s meal figured out that the best test to see whether you were fit enough for the second category is testing if you can remember enough Chemistry equations with all the speeeling and grammer mistakes in it.

Anyway, I somehow managed to come out alive (though not mentally unscathed), and last week (yes last week. I am lazy), I got my marks. Here they come!

YUVARAJ PANDIAN T ( 675154 )

There you go. Those are the “numbers” which will impact my life pretty heavily. I have ’bout 94% of marks, and a Science Cut off (Physics/4 + Chemistry/4 + Maths/2, used for Engineering Admissions) of 190.75/200. Sounds good on paper, but in reality, it’s not. I could get any college I want, except the really good ones. Sigh.

Hope I get a good college. Wish me luck, ‘coz that’s how lives are decided here.

(If I sound a tad, err, pissed off here, then it’s because I am. I’ll put in a new post ’bout why I’m pissed off at this education system soon)

The time is 3.46 am.Everyone else back home are on their scheduled trip to Narnia.I am wide awake, my mind seems sharper than ever and I’m typing using only the light from the computer screen.I tried to get back to sleep, mind.I counted sheep. Didn’t work.No amount of staring at the ceiling worked either.I think I’ll read something academic.That should put me to sleep.

Coconut Chutney

There seems to be an entire eco-system of bloggers from my home city that I have somehow managed to miss all this time. Simple, non-techy folks who write darn well. There’s a whole community of ‘em here! And I never knew! So, discovering more of ‘em, and adding them to Google Reader…

Met ‘em via IndiBlogger. Coolness
Also read: http://varshamohan.blogspot.com/ This 12 year girl beats me in elegance of English used.

Tags: community, chennai, blogs

Tamils have an awesome sense of humor

LSM: I feel Obama needs better posters. American graphic designers seem to lack the ability to deliver a punch.

PM: What do you have in mind?

LSM: This.

(source)

For those who don’t get it -> This is how an average Indian political poster looks like, with the BA and MA degrees though the politician pictured usually never passed out of primary school. And the top three pics are popular figures who support this politician

Crowding over a Jailbroken iPhone - the thing is famous over here. The people in the colored dresses are our Teachers - the best ones in our school This is the second iPhone I am physically seeing, and it belongs to a student here(the leftmost guy on the top-right pic). This one was brought for 30k Rupees, which is approximately $750! A tad too much for an 8 gig model, don’t you think? The first one I saw belonged to Prabhu, one of the organizers of pipesCamp

College = Jail?

I know that this stuff is true - many of my friends study in these colleges. I just wish I could get away from these.

Gaurav Mishra pointed me to this page which already does what this page is trying to do, and is more complete. So, over there folks! (Thanks to Gaurav for pointing it out, and thanks to Abhinav for putting that page up. I am hoping he makes that opensource, because I have some enhancements in mind). This page will no longer be updated. Sad that this died a quick death.

I’m a twitter addict. It seems that a lot of Indians are on twitter as well. But, I seem to have to work pretty hard to find them. So, I’ve setup this page where I maintain a list of active Indian users of Twitter. So, if you are an Indian Twitterer, or know someone who is, head over to the Indians on Twitter page, leave a comment with a link to twitter profile, a short description, and even a blog if you have one, and I will add you to the list in atmost a day’s time.

India overtakes US in Nokia phone Sales.

Thanks to Sisir for the link. I still remember the time people were in awe when they saw my Dad with his 2″ screened BW Cellphone. Now, everyone’s in awe as to why I don’t have a cell. Infact, I am about the 5% of the class population who Do NOT have a cellphone. Times change

Personal Joy. Social Sorrow.

Am just sharing it, as it’s not a problem in our all-boys School at all. In fact, it was just around 6 hours ago that around 6 people literally cornered a single guy, pushed him into said corner and made poses of hitting him so that I could take photographs of the whole action. Lots of bodily contact, I must say.

Is funny, but a bit scary as well. Where is humanity going? There would have been wars about it, if not for that we are getting a bit lazy of late to go about warring with each other over trivial issues.

In case you are wondering, what he writes is damn true as well. And, don’t ask me whose Fan I am: I swear no allegiance

Lightning Strikes Everyday: Rajinikanth: The Phenomena

P.S: Hawkeye is one of the most funny, insightful, stylish blogger on earth. Violent Acres doesn’t even come close (At least for me). One of the first blogs I encountered, and one of the best blogs around. Subscribe, if you haven’t.

Christian Long Reports on the first OLPC deployment, in Nigeria.

Rocks. The Computer my Dad bought for me changed my life in ways too drastic to mention. Think of what will happen if each of the kids below gets a Laptop.

Happy Kids Hosted on Zooomr

BusinessWeek: How to hire Bloggers.

To which, Zoli Erdos replies in two sharp sentences:

They shouldn’t. Find them within.

I was gearing up to write a really big post about how those two sentences applied to Schools and Marks, but then I remembered that I had an insanely stupid and big Chemistry Exam tomorrow. I’m takin it easy, basically because my parents won’t be informed about my “Marks” However, I’m still reeling from the whole percieved uselessness of schooling, because I realized I’ve learnt more from talking two very experienced people than from the past five years of schooling.

On a tangent (a secant, really), I know, I should be posting photos and audio recordings of the fantastic ADC which happened four days ago, but I’m in a work-avoidance mode, and just browsing around, so will get around to posting them soon. But believe me, the event was a fantastica eventica(yeah, I just invented it(But it’s really a dialect of Tamil(I guess))), and I’ve got a ton of photos photocommuting to and from the place (thanks to my friend Vickram: I suck at geography). So, some uploading frenzy coming up soon.

Also, some articles and announcements coming up, so keep looking(How’s that for PR Speak? :D)

Just got back from the camp a few hours ago. It was life-changing, to say the least. A few weeks back, I used the word “broaden my horizons” in my “author” section of my website. At that time, I had no idea that I would be featured on Scobleizer, get a camera or meet Leprosy patients. Now, I truly feel that my horizons have broadened. Detailed report comin uo, after school…

Obligatory SuperMacro of a Flower Hosted on Zooomr

Most people seem to post a SuperMacro of a flower or some insect first, and I too am following suit. If you notice carefully, there is quite a bit of noise in the picture, because I accidentaly shot this one at ISO 200, even though the light was good enough for ISO 80(This one was taken in the morning, and I forgot to change the previous night’s settings). But still, I am pretty freaked out that I am able to produce images of this quality. I have around 1800 pictures waiting to be categorized, tagged and uploaded, and with school tomorrow, It’s goanna take some time for that to happen. So, please bear with me.

And, I have decided to use Zooomr for hosting my pictures over Flickr. Why?

• The lone programmer there is just two years older than me! And, he was dablling in HTML when he was 5. Friggin cool.
• They give away free Pro accounts to bloggers. It’s good for a year, but I hope to be able to earn enough to buy my own Zooomr Pro account by then.
• The features rock! And, with just one person to convince, new features get in fast.

Oh, and all of them are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. Notice that it is Attribution only: You could do whatever the heck you want with it, but just gimme a link. Thank you!

Here is are some more samples:

Last Sunset at the Camp Hosted on Zooomr

Happy Kids 1 Hosted on Zooomr

Last Sunset at the Camp Hosted on Zooomr

Two Things of Beauty are a Joy forever Hosted on Zooomr

Seed on my hand Hosted on Zooomr

Exif data available on clickthrough.

See ya soon! Comments on the Photos are welcome! Thanks!

I woke up today morning, only to find that my request for donations had garnered it’s initial target of $250! Thanks guys! And, thanks Rob, who donated the $250 off his Casino winnings(A great way to spend them, I guess)! Also, thanks for some fine advice.

I spent the whole day salivating over reviews of the Canon Powershot S2 IS. I think I read about 8 reviews of it around, the best being this one at DCRP. I think I’ve hit the sweet spot, with Image stablization, long range Zoom, excellent battery life, a pro-esque boastable look, Sound Recording, decent Video, and some more freaky features. I’m salivating over it:D

But, there’s a problem: I set the limit to yesterday’s fundraiser at $250, ‘coz that was the price listed at CNET. My (extremely limited) past experiences have shown me that the price at the local store is actually lower than the price listed, so I set the target at $250.

But, today, checking prices on eBay.in, the most accurate reflection of Indian Prices, showed around 20k Rupees, which translates to roughly $450. And, checking the prices at the local shop gave me something around 19k, which is still around the same mark:( Hopefully, this is a mistake I won’t make again…

But, why Shop locally, when there’s Amazon? It’s because Amazon doesn’t ship to India. Not just Amazon, but every freakin online shop out there doesn’t ship to India. Yikes! Just ignore an emerging market with more people getting online everyday. What an awesome business strategy:D

So, I started another ChipIn, this time to raise $400. I plan to use this money to:

• Buy my Canon PowerShot S2 IS
• Buy a voice recorder for my upcoming podcasts
• Payback my cousin Sudar, who paid for the YuviSense.net Domain and the Hosting. Thanks!
• The Rest, I’ll buy things to give to the Village Kids at the NSS camp I’m going to. It’s a pretty underdeveloped village: I think they have a total of 20 Cellphones, in a village of 500 Families.

All Donors get a mention, and top 5 get an analysis(if they want, that is) of their blog. Please contribute, even if it’s just a $5, ‘coz it adds up. You can contribute with the Widget Below, in the Sidebar, or here. Thanks!

Chip In to help me buy a Canon PowerShot S2 IS: