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G@teway 2009 was held at Montfort School on 31st July, 2009.
It comprised of following events :

1. Quiz
2. C++ Programming
3. GD
4. Surprise Event
5. Hardware Assembling
6. Crypto-Analysis
7. Digital Imaging

I don't know much about how the event was organized as almost all of my time there was spent in the computer lab.
But as far as I could see, it was a decently well organized event. They made good use of the resources available to them. They also did a great job by almost starting as per schedule, and ending in time.
The trophies seemed fine.
Though, the refreshments weren't as satisfactory.
Also, their introductory video wasn't really good to be honest. They could have done much better than that.


Anyway, so I took part in C++ Progarmming along with Praneet Singh. It was a 2.5 hours long competition. We sadly couldn't secure any post. In the end were were tied with 2 other teams on the 3rd position, but some other team won on the basis of time taken to solve the problems and some theory-based MCQ's (in which we most probably scored 0. Why do they really ask theory based questions in programming???).
But I must mention, the team from DPS RKP did some great work by swinging the competition towards themselves at the last moment. 5 minutes before the end 4 teams were tied at 2nd position (including them and us).
But they seemed to have maintained their calm, because as soon as the competition ended, they ended with their deciding program too and got it right at the very last moment, securing the 2nd position and pushing down the other 3 tied teams to 2nd.

Anyway, I wasn't really impressed by the quiz though. It seemed too tough for the qualifying teams and I don't think any team was able to get any complete direct points. At the end of the quiz, 1 team was at around 15-20, 2nd was at 5-10 (don't remember) and the other 3 (including our's) were tied at 0.


Anyway, apart from that the event went amazing for us:

1. Hardware Assembling - 1st (Ravi Punj & Vardaan Sharma)
2. Crypto-Analysis - 1st (Ravi Punj & Siddharth Batra)
3. Surprise Event - 1st (Kavneet Singh Rekhi & Shubham Bhatia)

We yet again secured the overall 1st position.

Out of 4 symposiums this season, we have now secured the top spot in 2, and 2nd best in 1.
This year seems to have kicked off amazingly for C.O.R.E.
Hoping it goes on the same way.


The computer symposium season is on a hold for a few weeks now I think.
Some events (that I can recall at the moment) expected this and the next month are Matrix Ecomm (Mount St. Mary's), Minet (MIS), Dynamix (Ramjas School) & MODEM (Modern School, Vasant Vihar).
Do tell me if I am skipping any.


Adios for now
Enjoy

A.S.

Labels: Computer Symposiums, School

E-spice 2009 and Tech-Edge 2009 were conducted today (28th July, 2009) at DPS, Noida & Birla Vidya Niketan.
Our school, DPS Dwarka took part in both. We split our 1st team, half of which went in E-Spice and the other half in Tech-Edge.

I was a part of the E-Spice half.
I took part in Programming along with Ravi. We came in 2nd behind I don't remember which school....
E-Spice was a rather well organized event. Definitely much better organized than Ordinatrix. Plus it also had brought in a rather decent amount of crowd. I think probably around 15 schools had taken part in it. They were able to restrict most of the crowd to the hall (reason being that the air conditioning in the hall was rather powerful :D ).
They were also able to wrap up by 1 pm, inspite of the late start.
Apart from that the food was fine. They had followed the dabba system, except that it was a lifafa instead of a dabba.

But one thing that was REALLY unprofessional about the event was that most of the events didn't follow the concept of "time duration". In programming for instance, they started at around 9:45. The duration of the event was 1 hour according to the schedule, but they were casual about the whole thing and were like that you can leave when you want to leave. It seemed that there was no "end time". It was at around 11:40 that they finally started moving the programmers out, and even that was because the Surprise Event had to be conducted there then. I wonder if they would have even asked us to move had it not been for the Surprise Event. In fact later even during the Surprise Event, most of the organizers there didn't have an idea about when the event will end. "Thodi der mein" was like their pet reply.

But anyway, what happened with us that we had arrived REALLY late due to the traffic and all. We were told that arrangement would be made for us.
But when we said that we entered the programming event half an hour late and so should get half an hour more than others, we were initially simply told that "If you're coming in late, its none of our concerns." It should be your concern when you have already told us that arrangements would be made for us. Anyway so we were given around 10-15 minutes extra, and we were pretty sure that had we got another 10 minutes more we could have secured the 1st position.
Even in gaming, where the participants were supposed to be tested on the number of kills in 35 min, we were only given 15 minutes.
I guess they weren't really well prepared to handle the situation of late coming schools.

Anyway, we could only bag one prize - 2nd in Programming (Ravi Punj & me)
Apart from that there was :

• Gaming (15 intead of 35 as I have told you)
• Best out of E-waste ( Due to some miscommunication, we believed it to be web designing, and so ultimately couldn't send in any entry :| )
• Quiz (We came in 4th in an all-DPS final. Anunay (9th) & Shashank (10th) did a pretty good job, considering hat they didn't have much experience.)
• Digital Imaging ( Due to late entry, we all forgot about submitting our entry. :| )
  
• Surprise Event
  

The overall trophy went to DPS Mathura Road.


****


On the other side of the (NCR) town, Tech-Edge was taking place at Birla Vidya Niketan.
And we managed to do some GREAT job there.
There were 4 events :
1) M.I.R.A. (Surprise event) - 1st (Aditya Chitral & Kavneet Singh Rekhi)
2) Movie making - 2nd
3) Quiz (Sadly we couldn't win anything here)
4) Programming - 2nd (Abhishek Kapahi & Praneet Singh)
It all added up to we winning our 1st Overall Trophy for the season. :D

It has become a rather good beginning for C.O.R.E. with 1 overall winner & 1 overall runner's-up in just 3 events.
Hope to keep it going.


Next we have got G@teway at Montfort School & Mimansa 2009 at St. Mary's School on 31st July (Friday).


Adios,
Enjoy

Labels: Computer Symposiums, School

Today (July 22, 2009) we had Ordinatrix 9.0 at Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar.
It included 6 events :
1) Pallete@trix : Working on MS Paint for classes 1st-3rd (We came in 3rd in this. We were represented by Sharon Kumar and Tahnvi Sharma. )
2) Turtle@trix : Progg. in Logo (3rd again : Siddhant Bansal & Anubhav Baweja)
3) Morph@trix : Morphing images in CS3 for classes 6th-8th
4) Anim@trix : Animation for classes 9th - 10th
5) Code@trix : Software Display for 11th-12th (3rd yet again : Ravi Punj & Anirudh Garg (me))
6) Movie@trix : Movie-making for 11th - 12th

Overall we came in 2nd ( OBVIOUSLY behind Tagore International School, East of Kailash, who somehow almost always win the overall trophy. Considering that they don't really win much in other symposiums, I really wonder how how do they manage to bag the overall prize at Ordinatrix year after year. Actually I don't. In Prateek's words, "They have to make their sister branches happy." )

Anyway, we were pretty much happy with our performance as C.O.R.E. managed to bag the 2nd position (1st if you think more clearly) in the 1st symposium of the year, however we REALLY expected to win in Movie@trix and Anim@trix.
Some of the prizes there went to some rather undeserving participants (you sometimes HAVE to make some schools win, if you know what I mean). We strongly believe that 1 of the awards went to an entry from China just to please them ( What was the big deal?? They were SO happy about Chinese participation. The Chinese weren't even there dammit. They just mailed their movie. :| ).


Now moving on to the symposium..
Ordinatrix 9.0 was based on "Miniaturization". It pretty much seems to have taken a toll on their standards this year. Actually last year, I didn't go to Ordinatrix, so I can't really compare it with previous years, so I'll just give a general review...

Food : Ok-ok. The quantity was definitely not that impressive.

Schedule : Their events were majorly over by 12 pm. The results weren't announced till 1:15 pm. For 75 min we had to watch some videos, listen to endless speeches, watch those very videos again, and do nothing. It almost caused a fight between us and our school authorities as we wanted to stay back for the award ceremony, but the school buses had to leave.

Trophies : Now this is a sad little story. The trophies for all the position holders were the same, all saying "Merit Award". Apart from that, they weren't that great too. But I must say that the overall trophy was REALLY good, but it doesn't really matter when you already know where it will go.

Organization : The chairs were rather uncomfortable :P . But one good thing was that there were a bunch of escorts always on their heels to take you anywhere. Honestly that's the only good thing I found in the event.

I must say that either I have been thinking TOO high of Ordinatrix till date, or this year they seriously deteriorated in drastic ways.

Hopefully, they'll do much better next year.

PS : I must say I enjoy reviewing computer symposiums MUCH more than I enjoy reviewing movies.
:D

Adios.
Enjoy


Edit : A guy I know from DPS RKP - Anuj - who came in 2nd in Code@trix, told me that he has in fact already found the software presented by Tagore Int'l School, East of Kailash (who won the 1st position) on the net. Good job TIS!!! :D

Labels: Computer Symposiums, School

< For the 1st half of the story click here. >

Now during the 8 years that Adam was digging up Nick's backyard, the worms very smartly evolved into highly intelligent species.
They crawled and wriggled and tunneled through to every house in the WorldVille.
They multiplied into millions.
They set up more and more breeding centers. But funnily they had the most number of breeding centers in the homes of Adam and his friends. Life is ironical they say...


They were infuriated by how they were being treated in the town.
They were infuriated about how Adam and his friends were recklessly looking for them to kill them. There were stories among them of killings of fellow worms in various houses of the town. They were further infuriated. They wanted to take revenge. They wanted to leave their mark.
They tried to revolt in whatever way they could.

All of them were looking for one single opportunity to completely wipe out Adam and his friends.....

But in the middle of all this, closer to their original birth place, near Nick's place, a group of worms started getting together to form a group of highly intelligent and highly lethal worms..a group that we will call Taliban.....


******


But while this was happening there was another thing happening in Nick's house away from the whole town's eye.
Nick had his own issues and his own enmity with a neighbor of his - Jack. (I don't need to tell that Jack is really India)

In his secret space while no one was watching, Nick was creating his own plans to fight off Jack and humiliate him to take revenge for years of bitter relations that they had had. But Nick went a step ahead. He wanted to wipe off Jack.

He started creating a form of weapon we will call the nukes (which stand for the nuclear weapons today). He created more and more nukes without stopping for years.


Many houses in the town had such weapons but no one really used them. Such a kind of bloodshed was highly condemned in the town. The weapons were made and secretly kept secure by many houses if there is a need "just in case"....

A time was reached when in spite of Jack being intellectually, physically and economically stronger, Nick could easily beat him if he comes down to bloodshed using the nukes. All the people in town knew about their enmity, and many of them tried to make make things work between them. But it just wasn't working out.

Nick became the house with the fastest growing arsenal of nukes, and other houses slowly started taking notice of it....


The thing about nukes was that they could be made to attack by a simple pulling down of a thread that hung from the nuke...

But it turned out to be way too simple..
The worms that had entered various houses in the town took notice of it...
The just had to pull down a thread and the job would be done for them......
They had found the key to the opportunity they were looking for....

*******


The group of Taliban planned how to infiltrate Nick's home. They had got to known of all the nukes that Nick had stored in his attic.
They knew that once they get access to them, the whole town will listen to them and be scared of them and respect them again. But above all, they would get to revenge Adam and his friends for all the atrocities that were committed on their fellows. They would get to revenge Adam and his friends for all the years they had to live hidden in fear.


*******


Meanwhile Nick and Jack's relations worsened.
There were constantly groups of worms coming across to Jack's home and destroying it. They kept ruining the property and the furniture.
Jack found it really simple to figure out. He could easily add up all the things happening and he knew that Nick himself was sending across these groups of worms to infect his life.
Nick kept denying it, but Jack kept warning Nick to stop it before a time comes when he has to take a really harsh step.

Then on 26th November 2008, something unimaginable happened. The worms came across to Jack's place and infected some of his family members.
Jack was enraged. He knew that the limit was crossed.
He knew that Nick was behind all this, and he was ready to fight it out with Nick if he would have to. Nick kept denying that he was sending across these worms.

But many households supported Jack and there was more and more pressure on Nick to control all the worms...


*******


All during this time, the worms of Taliban entered Nick's home. They were on the door of the attic, where Nick kept all his nukes hidden. Nick realized what grave danger his town is in.
The whole town was alerted. Everyone panicked. Everyone knew how infuriated the worms were.
The worms were trying to take over the strongest arsenal of nukes in town.
If they end up successful, it could only and only mean the destruction of town...

But Nick was stronger that the world thought him to be. He bravely fought the worms. He threw out as many as he could.
With all the pressure from all the households around, he had no other option but to make sure than they never break the door.
He collected as many as he could and threw them out...


*******


This is where our story ends.
This is where the world stands today...


Nick has cleared most of the worms, but not all of them. And its not like as if more worms with greater strength won't come back. And if they DO manage to enter the attic sometime, it would mean the end of the whole world.....

**

Nick's strongest neighbor, Jack who could really act as a great help won't be ready to help Nick because of how Nick has constantly hurt his family. The town is in grave danger, but he can't just overlook and forget how his family stands deeply injured today due to Nick...

**

Many other households wouldn't really dare to come ahead and openly help Nick. Because then the worms would know that they support Nick, and they themselves would end up in grave danger due to the worms in and around their homes.

**

The households cant combine and root away all the worms near Nick's home, because it would only mean infuriating the worms even more. And considering that most of the breeding centers are in Adam's and his friends' houses, it would just mean instant attacks and the destruction of a large portion of the town.

**

The world stands at a standstill now..

2 superpowers fought for supremacy..
1 of them bred terrorists to defeat the other..
Years down the line the terrorists struck that very country back..
And now both the terrorists and the country are enraged..And neither would stop till the other is over..
But they don't realize that there is no "over"..
This will go on forever till the world collapses until and unless some sense prevails....

Labels: Philosophy, Politics, World

I'll tell you about a sad little story I learnt today.
Its a story known to many and unknown to even more.


The story is based in the town of Worldville and is about 2 kids who lived there - Adam and Daniel.
They both had their say in their parts of the town. Both of them belonged to the richest families in town. They lived their lives in pure luxury.
But at the same time they were bullies of the highest order. They did anything to establish their authority on the various kids in town.
But there was something different here. They weren't like the normal bullies who steal ice-creams from small kids or hit kids for their bicycles. These bullies were smarter than that. They acted by making "friends" in town and making them work for them as "favors". Slowly they established authority over these kids, becoming the so-called leaders of their own halves of the town.
But obviously, 2 leaders were too many for 1 small town. One day they came across each other. Initially they stayed away from each other, avoiding an inevitable fight between the two. But it couldn't go on for too long. There has to be just ONE leader. Who will it be?


They started doing anything they could to show each other down. They used lies, theft, treacheries and backstabbing to rise above the other in any way possible. They tried to humiliate each other in public. They tried to do better than each other in anything and everything.

But no, wars aren't fought this way.

After endless months of fighting, Adam got fed up. He knew he had to strike Daniel once and strike him hard. He made a plan - the WormShot plan he called it. He went to Nick a kid living near Daniel's place.
Nick was a kid of a middle class family. Not too great in studies too. He was an average kid with his own issues and his own problems with some kids in town. But there was something he had in town that no one else did. A back yard full of mud.
No one found anything special about that. Its a backyard full of mud and no plants. Who would care?
But Adam found something special about that. Adam's mind ran faster than most of the other kids in town. Adam knew how he could use a simple filthy backyard to his advantage.
Adam's logic got blinded by his shortsightedness and his ego. He went up to Nick and told him about his plan and lured him into joining him in his fight against Daniel in return for Adam's "friendship".
Nick was fascinated by the whole idea and joined hands with Adam.
Then Adam and Nick started putting into action their strange little plan.
What was the plan? It was to breed worms in Nick's backyard. Thousands and thousands of worms.
They did it for months and months till they had a whole backyard full of mud with worms wriggling in it. During this time, Nick started caring a lot about these worms and started considering them as his own children. He did whatever he could to protect them from any kind of danger till they grew up to become responsible enough for themselves.
Months turned into years, and finally the D-day came.

Then they went on to the final step of the plan. The step that would put a full stop to the fight for supremacy in the town; the step that would announce Adam as the undisputed leader of the town and Nick as one of his closest allies.

What they did next pretty much changed the town forever. They dug up a tunnel in Nick's backyard that led to Daniel's green backyard. The thousands of worms wriggled and crawled their way through to Daniel's home in the middle of the night and destroyed the whole of house. They scared away every inhabitant of the house away from it and destroyed the house in such a way till the time they crawled back to Nick's house that there was no scope left for any repair.
Daniel's rule was over. The house of his forefathers was destroyed. His family's legacy was destroyed. And he was put to blame for it. His relentlessness, his ego and his hunger for superiority overtook him and destroyed him. His family members turned away from him and he was left alone with a few sympathetic friends.



On the other side of the town there were celebrations. There were slogans of "HAIL ADAM!!".
People were rejoicing Adam's victory, they were praising his smartness, they were looking up to him as their hero and they all joined in to celebrate with him and his "close friends".
But standing in the limelight, Adam and Nick forgot to keep an eye on the worms.

Some of the biggest worms of the pack started digging into the ground and as luck would have it, they came out in Adam's lawn.
No one noticed them crawl into the house. Everyone was too busy dancing in the party.
The worms went up to Adam's empty room and ruined it all. They ruined his bed, his clothes, his books, his chests..everything.
When the dawn came and Adam walked into his room he was horrified. It took him not more than a second to realize what happened. The worms he had nurtured himself had come to his very home and destroyed his room.
He was furious. He went mad. He just couldn't believe it. How could this happen to him? On the very night he thought that he had become the ruler of the town, his short-sightedness and his ego betrayed him and the worms who grew up on the food bought by he himself, had come up to his room and savaged it.
Adam knew what he had to do. He had to kill those worms. They destroyed his room. And they could do more of it. He knew he had to find them and destroy them forever.


He went to Nick's home and started shouting at him and blaming him. He went to his backyard but the worms were nowhere to be found. Thousands of worms suddenly gone.
He blamed Nick saying that he had hid all of them in home as Nick had been too protective about them.
Nick, who had done all this to become famous in town and show down his own enemies by becoming a close friend of Adam, didn't know what to do. The person because of which he gained whatever he had had turned against him. The WormShot plan had backfired. And Adam blamed him for it. Adam accused him of hiding the worms in his home. Nick tried to make him believe that it wasn't so.
But Adam was too furious to listen to him. He kept telling Nick to get him the worms but Nick kept telling him that he didn't know where they were.
Adam grew impatient. He barged into Adam's home and started digging up Nick's backyard looking for the worms. He knew that Nick's backyard was home to them. They would come back. One day or the other they would.
And till then he decided that he would keep digging waiting for them so that he could punish them and hurt them and kill them.
He dug day and night into the backyard looking for the worms...
He kept digging but nothing was to be found...
But he didn't stop..
He kept digging.....


And its been 8 years and he is still digging....
And all Nick can do is watch his home being destroyed....
.
.
.
.


The story wasn't just a short story I came across. It is what the world has been seeing for the last 50 years.
Nick is no one else but Pakistan..
Daniel is Russia, also known as USSR..
Adam is the tyrannical USA..
The WormShot plan was what was called Operation Cyclone. The conspiracy to pull down USSR using worms..who represent no one else but what we refer to as the "Jehadis" today.



A war of ego, short-sightedness and a battle for superiority led everyone nowhere but to destroyed homes and lost peace...


For the sequel to this post, click here.

Labels: Philosophy, Politics, World

Well finally a new post after 2 weeks..

It's funny how you sometimes feel like writing posts so much that you end up posting 2-3 of them at one go, whereas sometimes a gap as long as 1 month pops up between 2 consecutive posts. Anyway a lot has been happening lately and I couldn't take out the time to post anything.
But here I am finally.

It has been a lloooonnnggg hectic fortnight for me.
I am finally done with my mid-semesters, which were for some sad reason back-to-back.
And I am telling you, half a day (or to think of it, even 2 days) aren't enough for preparation of Chemistry and Physics. In fact its interesting how my marks in Chemistry and Physics PUT TOGETHER won't probably add up to my marks in Computers. And trust me it doesn't mean that my computers paper went amazing. Its just that over the last year I think I have turned Physics and Chemistry illiterate. :|

Anyway, the upcoming month is what worries me (and excites me) more.

• I have got Ordianatrix at Tagore International, Vasant Vihar on 22nd this month.
• Investiture Ceremony on 23rd.
• MOD Quiz at Modern School Vasant Vihar on 24th and 25th.
• Then I have got E-Spice at DPS, Noida on 28th.
• I have been told that Techedge at Birla Vidya Niketan School is on 28th too. (So we'll have to choose between Techedge and E-Spice)
  
• Then I have Columban Open Quiz on 31st (or 1st August...I cant recall).
• Then G@teway at Montfort School is on 31st July (yet again another choice..this time between G@teway and COQ).
  
• Then I'll probably have MINET at Mother's International School in 1st week of August.
• Then I have got Wordz MUN at DPS Chandigarh from 10th - 12th August. (For which I am trying to learn MUNglish, the weird highly formal English spoken at MUN. The delegate strongly believes that he has made great progress in this direction.)
  
• Then I'll be conducting intra-school Maths and Computers competitions at my school in the later half of August.

By the way, lets not forget that July-August isn't even the peak season of inter school events. That's yet to come in Oct-Nov.
Also I have to start my college research for USA side-by-side.

You get an idea of what's coming up for me.
:|

In fact, I was talking to Prateek yesterday, and I realized how I have got to hear about SOOO many schools and competitions in the last 1 week that every school's name now seems to be "heard somewhere recently".

For the 1st 4 days of the week I hadn't slept for more than 4 hours everyday. And I left home at 7 am and came back at 8 pm for a couple of days.
Plus, its funny how its pouring when you are trapped in the examination room for 3 hours and its shining mercilessly bright when you need to roam around in the school.
Basically with a combo of everything, by the time I came back home in my superly-over-packed bus yesterday, I looked like a red-eyed sleep-deprived alcoholic zombie who could pass out anytime.
Well ok it wasn't THAT bad, but I definitely was half way there. :|

********

Anyway I also joined Twitter. You can check out my tweets here.


Plus I also got to know of this AMAAAZZIIINNNGGGG website yesterday.
Check it out here. It has some of the funniest videos I have come across in 8 years of my internet life.

********

Also here is another pure-PJ I came across a week back. :D
Teacher : What's the formula of Barium?
Student : Ba
Teacher : What's the formula of Sodium?
Student : Na
Teacher : Good. Now what would we get if we combine 1 of Barium and 2 atoms of Sodium??
Student : Banana

:D

********

Anyway the results of the previous poll are in:

Which Cyrus do you think is better?

a) Cyrus Sahukar (The tall one) : 5
b) Cyrus Broacha (The fat one) : 4
Sahukar seems to have won by just 1 vote. Close one.


Anyway,
I gotta go at the moment. I'll add up another poll asap.


And probably next time I'll be able to write "a post on a serious topic" that I have been intending to write since ages.

Till then,
Adios
Njoy

Labels: Computer Symposiums, Funny, MUN, Polls, Random, School, Videos

OK I am tired of telling people this.
LG stands for "Lucky GoldStar" and not "Life's Good".
So please clear it out.


Anyway thanks for the great response for the new look of the blog. Except for Ravi ( :| ) , everyone really appreciated the blog. Thanks a lot people. Makes those 4 hours feel worth them. :D
Results:
Impressive - 9 votes
Good - 4 votes
Bad - 0 vote
Pathetic - 1 vote
No difference - 0 vote


Anyway, so moving on, I am adding a new poll.
Which Cyrus do you think is better*?
1) Cyrus Broacha (the fat one)
2) Cyrus Sahukar (the tall one)

Do vote in the poll on the left column and leave a comment here about what you think.


* By better I mean in an overall way (funnier, better actor etc. etc.)

Adios
Njoy

Labels: Polls, Trivia