YuviSense: Codin Kid

Chennai blogger meet

08/06/2008 at 16:00

I’ll be going with my cam, and coming back with lots of pictures Coming?

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)

I launched TheStatbot.com. Yaay! I’m putting up 3 posts a week, which is good. I plan on going at that pace as much as possible. Also, there are some new dynamic leaderboards coming - stay tuned

Coding the technology behind it – GoodFather and Avee, has been an extremely awesome experience for me. I made a lot of mistakes, and learnt from them. Also, I spent quite a bit of time with the architecture, which has paid off by giving me an extremely extensible base to build off. More technical details in a later post. And, btw, did I mention that GoodFather was named for Rob Lagesse and Avee for my friend Avantika?

Also, a lot of things in my life are changing, leaving me in an inconsistent state. Sometimes, I wish I had can issue a ROLLBACK. I fancy I’ll get through though. Again, more info on this in a new post.

So folks, subscribe to thestatbot.com for your weekly dose of web stats J

Having a surgery to remove a small muscular growth under my eye tomorrow morning. Wish me luck

I’m writing this from my new computer. Here are the specs:

• Intel Quad Core Q6600
• 4 Gigs of DDR2 RAM
• 500+2×250 HDD Drives (all Seagate)
• nVidia 8500 Graphics Card
• 22" Acer Widescreen Display (AL2202W)
• Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Sound Card (with a 2.1 speaker set)
• Logitech Cordless Mouse and Keyboard
• WiFied house
• A Zebronics Peace Cabinet
• An 8$ Power Supply

Thanks to Rob, Chuck, Deanna, and Louis Gray for helping make this happen

The name of the new PC is SumaStorm. I’m naming individual applications for Rob, Chuck, Deanna and Louis (Rob already got his :))

I am relieved, happy, ecstatic (and I’ll put in a thousand more adjectives here) to finally be back online, blogging, twittering and most importantly, coding after a 4 month break. I studied things which I am absolutely, 100% sure would be of no use to me whatsoever anytime in my life. The experiences did matter: I learnt a lot about dealing with people, and stifling (and skipping) bureaucracy. These four months blunted the school-leavign experience, making it more bitter than sweet. The first round of tears are yet to be shed.

Anyways, I’m happy to have that distraction out of the way. Now I can concentrate on more important things:

• Archived all the conversations in my GMail Inbox.
• Unsubscribed from all the feeds in my Google Reader
• Cleaned up my blog categories.
• Got really started on Twitter (here). Twitter.is.addictive.
• Started writing cleaner, better, more extensible code (chucked out all my old code)

Right now, I’m extremely happy to just have this thing over with My new computer will be bought in the coming week, and I can put a lot more of my photos online

Thanks to all the people who checked on me while I practically disappeared for a long time. Standby for total makeover

Hi folks. I’ll be practically not-online for about 4 months from now. Till the end of March ‘08. I’ve to game the exam system here to get 596 out of 600 to get into a good college. So, I’ll probably pop up online perhaps once in two weeks to check up email, see if Rory has finished the creation story (he still hasn’t (grrr)) and see how the internet is managing without me

Got lots of ideas for things to do once I get my new Power Computer after the exams. Wish me luck, folks!

I’m pretty sure he won’t read this, so I’m writing it here. I know one person who can communicate this to him (My awesome cousin Sudar) who, I’m sure, will honor my unspoken request to not tell him. However, if he is reading this (by he, I refer to my brother), then can I, Yuvi, please ask him to stop reading now and go back to a safer place?

So, let’s start from the beggining. I have a brother. He’s my younger brother ‘coz, well, he is younger than me. But, he has a problem. He keeps irritating me. Every time. This might (and probably is) my problem, but it makes me feel (slightly) better if I can think it’s his problem and not mine. Also, it reduces my inferiority complex a bit since I don’t have to add “Irritaed by brother even if brother doesn’t irritate him” to the list of things that I’m inferior in. So, I think and believe that it’s his problem that he’s irritating me and not mine. Life (is) (G|g)ood.

But, he has one habit that really really annoys me. He uses the same computer I do. I don’t have any problem with this. Atleast, that’s what I hope I’d like to think. But, in reality (which sometimes sucks), I get irritated when he plays this darn stupid game called Cricket 2005. Don’t take my word for it: Check all these reviewers who also think that this game is stupid, sucks, and therefore shouldn’t be played by brothers. Especially younger brothers. Especially if they have elder brothers who are (wannabe) geeks. Like my brother. And Me.

So, I got too irritated with him today. I don’t use the computer too much now (With the exams comin up and all), but I got so irritated that I wrote this ZOMG awesome app called BroBuster that can pretend to be Cricet 2005 and crash every time it starts. Ofcourse, it won’t just crash. It gives out an error message about a graphics card error, and then, after a random interval, crash. This has a cool side effect, as I really *do* need a newer graphics card as my last one burnt out and my monitor is now all shaky as the inbuilt graphics controller also seems to be giving out. So, he’ll start pestering my Dad to get him a newer graphics card (so that he can continue playing that damn stupid game), which will be much more effective than me pestering him. But, he will get the card after the exams, by which time I’ll be getting my own super-awesome-super-computer thanks-to-Chuck-Rob-Deanna. So, he can play all that he wants, and I don’t have to deal with him. Problem solved!

So, message to all younger brothers out there: Don’t mess with your elder brothers. Especially if they are geeks. Even if they are wannabe geeks who can’t spell beginning correctly.

P.S. I’m sure that many of you would like to use this app(Yeah, sure. It’s goanna be as popular as xoeresa). But, unfortunately, I can’t release it now, as it can’t be used for every game now. A few config changes should take care of that, but those load-from-config-file code is not working now ‘coz it’s not yet written, ‘coz, basically I’m a lazy guy. So, all-the-non-existent-persons-who-love-my-unreleased-app, you’ll have to wait.

P.P.S: If you’re my brother, and you’re reading this, please tell me. I’ve gotta grab a helmet, some earbuds, and run. Thank you.

P.P.P.S: The first thing I’m goanna do after my exams is read the bible. Cover to cover. Well, with most of the pages torn out (so cover to cover will be small, silly). Why? ‘coz I’m goanna continue writing some more stuff that is a continuation of Rory’s awesome creation story series. So, Rory, better complete the series. Atleast before April. You are threatened. By a stupid-wannabe-geek-with-a-nervous-disorder.

People are stupid.
I, for the most part, am people. Draw conclusions. I have done quite a number of really stupid things this week, like breaking my index finger, getting wounds on my leg and hands, and almost falling out of a public bus. All but one of them (the wounds) can be explained by my stupidity, which is why I won’t be explaining them here.

My final year exams are getting close. The marks I get here decide which college I can go to. I don’t (really) wanna get stuck in a college where 99% of my fellow students are jocks. Don’t get me wrong: I do have quite a bit of respect for jocks, but they can be total asses sometimes. So, I’ve gotta get great marks here. Great as in better than good. To the tune of 596+ out of 600. Sigh. Means less computer time for the next 4 months

And, Saki, my current computer, is about to die. She refused to boot up for two days when I wanted her badly to do a Powerpoint Presentation for a competition to school, and then suddenly started booting again when the competition was over. So, I’ve gotta replace her. But, if I do that now, all that I’ll be doing for the next 4 months is drool over the new computer. So, I’ve decided to wait for my exams to get over before I buy the new one. And, I’ll try my best to outspec my cousin Sudar who just bought his new computer.

Here’s the important part of the post: I’m going to thanks Chuck, Deanna and Rob for making my dream computer a reality by naming the Motherboard+Processor as Chuck, the RAM and Grafix Card as Deanna and the Storage Array as Rob Couldn’t have done it without you Huge thanks to Chuck (who works at Virtual Reality IM Network IMVU) for contributing the major chunk of the $1500

[Warning: Personal matters ahead. Feel free to skip]

There! I said it! I’ve been trying to say it since I came back from Ooty last monday, but today, I said it! It’s been one friggin awesome tour. I throw the adjective “friggin awesome” around a lot, but I really mean it here. When the teachers kept referring to this as an “educational” tour, there were a lot of giggles amongst us. But now, I see why it was “educational”: I really learnt something there. I learnt to actually live with a group, to compromise, to actually solve problems, and one more thing which I can’t discuss right now. That last thing will probably be more important to me in my life than anything else I’ve studied, so this tour was friggin awesome.

Pictures? I took 3,000 of them I’ll be posting up the good ones soon

And right on the day after we returned from the tour, we went to St. Bede’s for an interschool cultural competition, where I won the Powerpoint competition. The best thing about the whole event were the girls<gasp!>. Our presentation was supposed to be about a Girl’s School. However, being from an all-boy’s school, girls are more alien to me than those Neptunians who landed on my backyard 3 weeks back. Thankfully, I had two more guys (Swapnil & Yusuf) with me for whom they were a lot less alien, and with their help I was able to win the thing. Girls turned out to be much more similar to Homo Sapiens than I thought

And, thanks a lot to my cousin (and great friend (and the guy who inspired me to code (and photograph as well))) Sudar for lending his iPod to me.

Oh, and, I’m releasing the code for my blog analyser, and that too after (yet another) complete rewrite! More info soon…

My first trip outside of a very limited area with my Camera, and I’ll be back in 4 days with tons of pictures! Sad thing being, I couldn’t put up the TechMeme/Memeorandum analysis for which I already have the data. And, my cousin Sudar gave me his iPod for the trip (Thanks a lot!), but after loving it for a Day, I’ve started hating it because it lost all the songs in it because of a simple write error and made me recopy all the songs even though they are already on the disk. As I am speaking, I’ve been delayed because of the damn iPod’s closed proprietary db. Sigh.

And, my Chipin has reached it’s goal! I can buy a new computer! Yippes! I’ll come back and give you details, but it was Chuck again who did it. Thanks a lot Chuck! More details after I come back…

That pretty much sums up how I feel now. Here’s the cycle I’ve been repeating on and off today:

• Run a report on Digg’s Frontpage Data
• Get upstairs, watch a bit of any of the Mel Brooks’ movies they’re airing on Sony Pix right now
• Get back downstairs, get pissed off over the fact that my system Saki (I name my stuff) is so powerless in the face of Digg that it takes 10 minutes to generate the data for a simple graph (I know I can optimize my algorithms, but heck, I want to write them fast for this. Afterall, I can use it on only one website :))
• Get upstairs again, get pissed off at the commercials
• Get downstairs, see the chart, hunt out to find some context to interpret it, and write it out in Word
• Repeat, while repeatedly losing any form of coherence you might have developed in your writing.

I apologize to anyone who cares to listen for the delay, and hope to put the first part out by tomorrow.

Rory Blyth.

Teenagers are supposed to have some idols. Y’know, people who they follow around all the time on TV/Internet/MySpace/Whatever. Whenever said teenager talks about said idol, they’ll be frothing at the mouth and various biological compounds of unknown origin will find their way into the bloodstream of said teenager.

I’m a teenager, and Rory Blyth is one of my idols. His was one of the first blogs I read (I got there through another idol, Sriram Krishnan), and one of the blogs where I don’t just read through the RSS, but actually go out and read through the archives. I’m that kind of a Fan. Shruti often comments that I have a crush on his words. Not just his blog, but his videos and podcast as well. Infact, the only Channel9 videos(well, videos from anywhere, infact) I download are Rory’s, and the only podcast I listen to is Rory’s(Though he’s been off it for sometime now. Wassup yo?). While this is partly because of my bandwidth restrictions (Try living on 2.5 gigs of upstream and downstream data a month), this is also partly not because of my bandwidth restrictions. He could interview my Geography textbook and actually make it interesting.

I actually stole that above bit from a previous bit of writing. That previous bit of writing, ofcourse, was also mine. I was trying to write a StatBot on Rory Blyth. I had my Data. I had the fancy graphs. I had pretty much what I wanted (except, uhm, a lot of compromising things I can’t disclose here). But then, I was sucked into reading Rory’s archives (again). I was like, so frothing at the mouth again that I had to gave up. He could not be quantified. The words there, the text, the blog posts, they’re on a class of their own. That class doesn’t implement ICloneable, the fields are all private, and the only constructor is private, so you won’t be able to do anything about them except acknowledge that they are a class of their own. You can’t even use reflection against them, so, admit it, those words are a class of their own. Quantity can’t do justice to them. It really can’t, so I gave up.

This is the only time I have actually gagged laughing. It’s very much like reading Douglas Adams, except Rory actually responds to my comments. It’s almost kinda a drug: I swapped back to Firefox thrice while writing this short paragraph to read 3 fantastic old posts of his. It’s just that every post of his is so, well, ooglable.

So,

Rory, you’re my hero. I thought I should let you know. You have become a hero to atleast one (1) teenager around here. One day, I hope to have your qualities(Damn, my writing needs to improve. I’m writing in cliches) Thanks yo, I’m feeling better now because of you!

Your posts

And, as a small tribute to my hero, I’m leaving this XML file (right click, save. It’s 5 megs, crashes FF) containing all the posts he has written so far, along with their associated metadata, in an easily digestable format. Whip up Visual Studio Orcas and use LINQ over this to get some nice statistics or anythin. I’m using LINQ, and loving this. So grab that XML file and do something, anything, with it. For starters, I just ran one of Rory’s recentish posts through one of my not-so-recentish apps, Fudge, to produce some cranky output. Read it here.

On a completely different secential note, I dig this picture below and ask you all to atleast click on it and if you click on it because you really actually like it instead of because I asked you to, fave it as well. I assure you that there is a bening motive to this:

Rereading this post, what’s the point? I donno, I guess I just wanted to say thanks for his awesome writing. I say thanks just for the fun of it, and it makes me feel good as well: Ask Rob, he gets a bit irritated about it!

Also, he commented on my blog post here about my experience with Modafinil. I was pretty pumped up over that(buf, how many days do YOU wake up to see a comment in your inbox from your hero?). I had taken a bit of slack over that Modafinil post, and he made sure I calmed down and got on my senses. Thanks Yo!

And, I’ve been stealing his style quite a bit for my school essays, and getting good grades for them as well! So, there’s another reason.

So, ending with, Rory, you’re my hero! Okay, change that to, Rory, you are one of my heros!