Domestic Airlines! you kidding me?

When i was a child, I was so excited to see planes flying in sky. It was my dream to sit in one of them. I still remember my first flying experience! But the last journey i had would be one of my most memorable incidents.

It was an United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to San francisco. 10:30 am. I was still having jet-lag from my recent travel back from India. Since I was actually shifting completely, so even though the journey was of only couple of hours still I had like 100lbs of luggage!
Everything was going smooth. I checked in my BIG bags. Took a boarding pass. Went through Security check. Only thing which was left was to board a flight.

As soon as the gates were open, I saw there was more rush today. It took me no time to realize that there were more number of people than the capacity! And people were still pouring in! It was surprising to me and I thought - Are they going to make them sit on the roof today? and I laughed at myself. I never knew i was going to be a part of the joke. As i reached to board the plane.. I was informed that my seat has already been occupied. What? They asked to get a new seat number by joining a new line which i think was longer than infinity. Awed and Shocked, I had no choice but to be a part of the new queue. After one hour, thats 30 mins after the expected departure of the flight, they told me that I wont be able to board in this flight!
Even though i had a paid ticket, a boarding pass, a confirmed seat, I was not going to make it!

I furiously rushed to their customer center. I realized that its just not me who is facing this, but a bunch of people who were following me and heading towards customer care more furiously! It was a nightmare for the staff. They were making adjustments, fixing things, allowing people to board other alternate flights. A rarely seen chaos.

People were shouting, fighting with the staff and they were doing their best to sooth all of them. All this ended up with a negotiation. They gave all the people $400 coupons and apologized! Now it was my turn on the counter. I had nothing to lose. So i just tried, I said, I wanted to go in that flight! My sound was pissed and irritated. Already builded tension helped me and they gave me an extra ticket along with the coupons! You Kidding me? - I laughed.

I came back home. Took rest. Came back in the evening for traveling with the free ticket. It was one of its kind experience.

India-Pakistan, Face-off!

I know the internet is flooded with emails, pictures, blogs, website notes, rss feeds about the next ICC Cricket World Cup Semi-Final, India v/s Pakistan. But, it is impossible to explain the importance of this match. This is not a semi-final.. this is a MEGA-final!

It is not the first time when India and Pakistan is facing each other in a world cup match. Even though the overall result of the clash has been dominated by Pakistan (69 wins over 46 defeats in 119 encounters) but in World Cup, Men in Blues has given a clean sweep to Pakis (4 wins by India and NO defeat)!

World Cup 2011 is about to face the heat again. But this time, the color green is in tremendous form. Pakistan team has been through a rough time and has survived out of the most ridiculous phase. Even though the world cup is hosted in South Asia, not a single match is played in Pakistan. "World Cup Pakistan me nahi ho sakta, par World Cup Pakistan me aa sakta hai". Thats what the Pakistan team believe and trust me they have nothing to lose.

Indian team, on the other end, is struggling with their bowlers. Inspite of good batting, the bowling has let India down at crucial stages in the initial matches. But not to forget, India is considered to be the team with a box of surprise. And thats what makes this game more interesting, isn't it?

I am all set for the Big Game.

Hoping to see a good game of cricket!

All the best! This time, Bleed Blue!

No big cake for 127 hours, Social Network and Inception.

The 83rd Oscar Ceremony was a surprise!
I am sure it was just not me who was expecting a blowout of 'Inception' or '127 days' or 'Social network' all around. Just like we expect a boombang start from Sehwag and Sachin. But, it was not what was written on the cards. Inception, 127 days, Black Swan, Social Network were overshadowed by 'The King's Speech'.

The King's Speech (Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, stood out as the Best Picture this year. Colin Firth was selected as the Best Actor. Tom Hooper as Best Director. David Seidler as Best Screenplay.

Inception on the other hand, rated one of the highest in the popularity chart this year, had to get satisfied with Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Visual Effects.

127 hours, a struggling real life story, was well appreciated but had be satisfied being in the nominations.

Black Swan, Natalie Portman was the most deserving candidate for Best Actress and she bagged it happily.

Social Network, had very impressive editing and was awarded by Best Editing oscar award. The other awards bagged were Best Music and Best Writing.

In Animation movie catagory, Toy Story 3 stood out tall. It was the Best Animated Feature Film and also pocketed the Best Music (original song).

Everybody needs a website.

Having a website is so important.
In fact it is becoming one of the necessities.
A personal website not only provides you an online space where you can host your work but also allows people all around the world to access your content 24x7!

It is the simplest and economical way to project your work.

But, How simple is to build a personal website?
What is required to build a website?

In simple words, A website can be defined to be made up of 2 things-
1) domain name.
2) file hosting server.

Domain name, is the name of the website you want.
for eg. "www.google.com" is a domain name... All we type in the address bar while browsing is purchased by someone.
So, first thing while building a website is - Purchasing a domain name.

These days there are many options available in domain names. A domain name can end in .com, .edu, .org, .info, .mobi, .us, .net, and maybe couple of dozen more to this list.
But this is just to differentiate your website.
.com stands for company.
.edu stands for educational institute
.org for organizations and so on..
Now www.google.com and www.usc.edu makes sense!

This was the first step! Second step is to get a place where you can keep all your files and images and videos and stuff.

File Hosting Server, is a place where you keep all your files required for the website.
Files can include text files, .html pages, images, videos, css, flash files etc.

Once you have these two things ready you are all set to get a website up.

A web developer can take on from here and can build a website as you want.

YouTube - Is it good for uploading professional videos?

YouTube after taken over by google has emerged as one of the most popular video hosting website.
But the question is - Is it really good for uploading professional videos?

Here are few facts to help us understand more about these video hosting websites.
The user-made video hosting concept started in late 90's . Today there are more than 20(maybe even more) free video hosting websites. Out of which YouTube has its own share of popularity.

Because of this reason, I decided to upload few videos on YouTube . I think it is one of the simplest and easiest site where one can upload a video. But YouTube seems to degrade the quality of a video.
One of the main differences in YouTube and other sites is the freedom of selecting a thumbnail image. It might seem to be a simple thing, but is very crucial in case of uploading some professional videos. Following are few things which one should note when uploading a video on YouTube -
1) YouTube doesnt take the initial image for thumbnail of the video.
2) It provides you with 3 choices (approx. the image after the video is played for 25%, the image after the video is played for 50% and then third image when it is played for 75%)
for eg. if your video is of length 1 min. The three thumbnails you get would be approx. image at 15th sec, 30th sec and 45th sec.

This forces us to have the most important part of our video to be at exactly at the center of the video. I see this as a drawback and definitely a thing to be considered while using YouTube to upload professional videos.

As compared to others, Vimeo gives choice of 9 thumbnail images and so on.

Animation - Art or Science?

Consider we playing a game where I tell you a word and you have to come up with the most suitable word describing what I said.

What comes to your mind when u hear the word - 'Animation' ?

hmm.. Tom and Jerry? Childish? Funny? or.. Creative? or even.. Artistic?!

Animation is a combination of 2 "E's" -Engineering and Entertainment. I always wonder about how it has been so successful in hiding the basic secret - 'How animation is done?' I very recently realized a fact that making an animated movie is 10 folds more interesting than watching one!

But, That's not what i am interested in today. I am concerned about the question, Whether 'Animation and Graphics' considered more as an art or it has some different meaning?

I just want to narrate you my today's incidence from my class - Physically Based Modeling for Simulation and Games. After a mind tiring session of solving linear equations, double derivatives and finding force and energy on all these particle systems, one of the student asked the professor - "How do they come up with these equations?"

I really liked the question, I always wanted to ask this. This guy finally did!
The question was so simple and really interesting, How do mathematicians come up with equations like Force Equations, Tylers Equations, Alphas and Betas and Gammas, sine and cosine of angles, Derivatives and Integrations? It almost waked everyone up.
And the answer was more interesting..
Prof said, "It is simple, It is just like a symphony is created. It is just like a song is composed."

Mathematical equations are made just like a song is composed? The simile is so wonderful. The all so boring math equations are created just like a beautiful song! Whoa! That's a relief.

But the equations I learned in this subject has made me to believe, that Animation is just not a artists work. There is a lot of maths involved in every small thing in this world..
for eg.
- A strand of hair is imposed by Eulers Equations and So are waves of the sea.
- Fire Particles in computer animation are not random but they are moderated by well formulated algorithms.
- Water, Trees, Bushes, Rocks all these things might seem to be part of the background.. But they too are generated with intense algorithms and complex rules.

Mass Spring system, Newtons Law, Collision Detection, Linear Equations.. all these are required to generate one simple scene of any animated movie. There is hours and hours of efforts while bringing up a small movement. A slight wind, a simple wave of hairs, falling of rain.. all this is backed up with mathematical equations.

So, next time I watch an animated movie..

Respect.

Life.Learn.Live

Life. Learn. Live.

College life is the BEST span of life, memories of which lasts for lifetime. No need to mention we spend it as we want to! We make friends, we explore and we understand, we play and we fight, we laugh and we cry, we love and we cheat, we lose and we win and sometimes study too. We are free. Just like birds, isn’t it?

I can still remember the first spine shiver on the first day of college. Nervousness attending the first lecture. Getting scared while doing the first assignment. The first look at the girl in the gym.

But, soon the fear gets over. Confidence shines like a sun in a winter morning. We are more active and enthusiastic. Friends, Food, Fridays. We realize the importance of Beer. Projects, Assignments, Home Works and other activities help us explore new unknown directions. Sports acts just as a spice in the Indian curry.

But, suddenly there is time when we realize we are no longer the future of this world; we are the ‘present’!

Responsibility appears just like a girlfriend, completely unexpected! We love it for the first time, but will we be able to carry it till the end?

Will we be able to give back the society what we’d achieved from it?

Will the knowledge we earned be really be applied to what it is intended for? Or we will just follow the crowd?

Answers are with us. We just need to follow our heart!