15 Apr 2009
My practical exams are on full swing, and the process by which we are allotted our fateful experiment really needs a mention here!
In a batch of some twenty students taking the exam, there would be around 20-22 question papers, lying face down and spread out on a table near the entrance of the lab. We queue up by our register number and wait patiently for our turn. Each person, when his turn arrives walks forward, looks at the pile of question sets, and chooses ONE.
The cruel thing about this process is that, in case the question happens to be the only question you had not studied for (one law states that the probability of getting a question is indirectly proportional to the amount of confidence you have with the answer for that question), you would end up feeling really mad at yourself for picking that paper!
This has led to numerous superstitions amongst the students, when it comes to picking a paper. A friend of mine once said he will always pick the right most paper. Another person said he would pick the one in the middle. Some try to keep a blank mind and pray that their fingers randomly touch a paper with an easy question. And, the last person in the batch almost always curses his fate for being the last guy in the queue, because he is left with only a few papers to choose from. Or, on an unlucky day, only one paper to pick up.
But, I ask myself, does it really matter which paper I choose? Deep down I know it doesn’t. My logical reasoning tells me that there cannot be any correlation between picking a paper from a particular position and the difficulty of the question. Yet, some things are just outside the control of your logical mind. You would rather be superstitious than “break” the habit and end up with a killer question. Especially when you are already depending on the stars to wade through an exam!
15 Mar 2009
It has become some kind of standard practice to have the phrase “Copyright [insert_current_year_here]” at the bottom of our blogs and websites, regardless of what it actually means to us or our users. Rippers and thieves know very well what copyright infringement is, so copyright statements are neither a warning or a deterrent in most cases.
Forgetting all that for a moment, what is still surprising is to see so many sites (including some well-known ones), having an outdated date on their site footers. You can see this especially around the turn of the new year. I have seen this in a few WP templates as well.
Ok, just a gentle reminder. Don’t embed the copyright year using plain html text. Use your server side scripting language (read as PHP or Ruby these days) to generate them.
In PHP, you can do it as simply as:
echo "Copyright " . date('Y');
Simple, but effective. Now, that’s one way to keep your old, unmaintained websites up-to-date!
24 Jan 2009
I have only 45 copies left and I am giving them 20% off!
So, that comes to now US$40, INCLUSIVE of shipping.
If you are interested, get one right now.
19 Jan 2009
There are times when you get so inspired by someone, or something that you end up doing stuff you never imagined you would actually love doing.
In my case, it was both a someone (Barack Obama) and something (Cameron Moll’s beautiful letterpress posters) which inspired me to create these.
These 14” by 20” posters are a product of hours of (fun) labour, letterpressed using one of the very few platen letterpress machines still left in Chennai. I was intent on printing this on letterpress and after days of literally hunting down press after press in some of the most dingiest streets of Chennai, I am glad I finally found one and got it printed.
I would be making a more detailed post on the backstory and the process behind the making of this poster soon. If you fancy it, do grab a copy!
Update:
I have also posted this item on eBay, if that’s your kind of thing (and I know it’s kinda difficult sometimes purchasing things randomly on the web). The price is 5 dollars more, due to the extra charges that eBay imposes.
Added a photo of the (zinc) metal block which is used in the letterpress printing process.
3 Jan 2009
We are sometimes our fiercest critic. That can be either a curse, or a blessing. A curse, because we could end up being too judgmental about our own work. On other instances when our self evaluation leads to constructive ideas that have positive effects on the quality of our work, it could be a blessing.
More often than not, we are bogged down by our fear of what others might think. We are afraid of failure, rejection and criticism. We dare to dream, and yet decide not to take the plunge. We write ourselves off, without even giving ourselves a decent chance. After all, inaction can be comforting. But not for long. If you quit just because you were afraid of taking the plunge, then you will not be in peace with yourself. You will carry the burden of an unfulfilled dream.
So, just take the plunge. Do it because you believe in yourself. Do it because you are convinced you can succeed. Taking the plunge means growing a thick shell towards the naysayers. It means raging against the dying of the light. It means being patient and persevering. Above all, it means giving yourself a chance to prove yourself.
Do not judge yourself on the conclusions of others. Do not use someone else’s life as a yardstick to measure yours. Everyone is unique and thus accelerate at different rates and at different times. Evaluate your progress only against your own goals. Even if all goes wrong, you can’t cease to hope. And you definitely can’t stop working.
Dreams translate to hope, which in turn manifests as belief that eventually drives achievement.