Ramble
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Its been a while since Ive rambled on this blog. So as a precautionary warning, if my sentences arent coherent just take them in stride.
(Stop reading here if you're scared of engineering terms)
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College is being a bitch lately, mostly due to senior design. My team is not getting a lot of progress done mainly because my team mates are both CompE's and analog circuits isnt exactly their forte. My design too seems to be hitting roadblocks every now and then. My part of the design includes building a RF transmission system, and I chose to do that via tone generation and detection. First mistake. As it happens the RF system provided to us isnt capable (reliably) of transmitting over 1kHz tones. That is a problem because I need enough bandwidth between two tones so that my detection circuit does not pick up duplicates. In layman terms, I have six buttons and because of the current limitation it would be possible for one button to trigger two or more functions. Bad bad bad.
The tone detector circuit is modular and has six detectors being fed with output from the RF reciever. The detection frequency is tunable via capacitors and resistors but each frequency is not accurate. It will pick up a range of frequency and set the output to high. Which is why a bandwidth of 1 kHz is really limiting. My only hope is to go ahead and build the circuit and hope for the best (the worst thing an engineer can do basically).
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(start reading again)
My other course, dealing with a multi-discipline project is going really well. My team here is supposed to hook up the world with traffic info from a specific traffic junctions around campus. We got most of the site worked out (mostly my coding) and its available here. Click on the Etrans/estadium team btw and choose any traffic point. The live view is kinda bandwidth hungry so if it shows a static image then bad luck.
One good and bad part about this course is the voluntary PHP class Ive had to take. It was fine the first few weeks but it got really hairy afterwards and I lost the instructor (he's a TA) completely (mostly because its a crash course and I crashed). He wants to give a final exam and I'm really not interested. I dont care basically because the profs I'm working under have outright told us that if we manage to fulfill our proposal, its an A, and we have for most part. Moreover its a freaking one credit course, I cant be bothered when I have Senior design to worry about.
Apart from that college is fine :P.
Winter is here and it sucks ass. Hate it...
Eid came and went. Missed home folks a lot that day. Made a lot of calls to dubai as well as nagpur. Got to talk to most of my cousins; luckily they were all at my grandfathers place in nagpur.
Weird thing happened today, I was reading gulfnews online and read about this family of four who died on the spot after meeting with an accident in Dubai. My sister Sarah tells me today that one of her friends died and it turned out to be one of the same family. Tragic. Stuff like this makes one aware of the uncertainty of life.
Current fav song : Roxen - Lams (from the album Rozen-e-deewar). This song is almost hypnotic, mainly because the singer repeats the same line over and over. The whole album is really good and if youre into Pakistani rock, check it out.
Edit: Full album download links (Copy paste each URL into your browser)
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140789/01_-_Sapnay.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140840/02_-_Chaltay_Rahay.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140884/03_-_To_Phir_Aao.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140912/04_-_Aaj.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140954/05_-_Lams.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140981/06_-_RoXen-e-Deewaar.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141006/07_-_Jag_Chor_Diya.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141035/08_-_Yadeein.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141137/09_-_Mujhko_Satao.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141200/10_-_Malangi.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141247/11_-_Mujhko_Satao_-_Instrumental.mp3.html
I think I can feel my laziness creeping back in, so thats all from me. Maybe in another 4-5 months I'll write another update. Until then enjoy the stupid videos and jokes :D
Greetings
Monday, October 23, 2006
Eid Mubarak all. Hope you all enjoy your Eid very much and just eat an extra helping of that good stuff that gets made for Eid on my behalf ;).
New form of Sadism
Thursday, October 19, 2006
See, this is a good outlet for all your frustrations. (courtesy: Rollercoaster Tycoon)
Slo-mo
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wanna make a mundane event look cool? Make a slow-mo video of it, simple! That said, this video is so cool :P.
Photos at last
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Went to Chicago over the October break, twice. Second time though, I took my camera with me and took a few shots @ Navy Pier. We rented out bikes and rode along the bike trail for a couple miles. Good decision photography-wise ;). Some favorites (read touched up and glamorized)...
Click to see gallery
All other photos (read average trip pictures) from the outing can be found here. Be cautioned, you might just catch my mug in there somewhere ;).
The essence of a Bollywood "Hero"
Thursday, October 05, 2006
And more often than not, this "hero" will be played by Rajnikanth ;).
What really matters
Sunday, October 01, 2006
You know what's a really humbling experience? Looking at astronomy photographs. We are this tiny speck in some corner of our own galaxy much less this universe. And I mean tiny:
- VV Cephei compared to the sun. VV Cephei is the largest known star; 1621 times the size of the Sun and 300,000 times more luminous.
- As far as the eye (Hubble) can see. Milky way is just one of the hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
It makes me wonder on the possiblity of other life forms out there. We just cannot be the only ones in this vast emptiness of the universe.
Wikipedia to the rescue of all bored philosophers ;)
