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Friday, April 27, 2007

Fatal Error hJc93 (What the heck!!)

Finally finished our proj today :)
And since I had a lot of time as a result, found the article below on my comp. I'd written it in a bout of frustration when I was doing an intern in the last hols. Could identify with it again since I'v been working in matlab for the past month for the project..

“What’s in a name” proclaimed Shakespeare grandly!! Ahhh… What did he know?? I don’t think he ever got a fatal error titled hjc93…something something because of a name repetition in the top level and a sub-sub- ( I think 5 subs) module of any programming language. Now incidentally, I had even forgotten that the module exists, so knowing and avoiding the signal name repetition was completely out of question. And why that dim-witted thing couldn’t simply state such a simple fact instead of giving an unfathomable fatal error, is totally beyond me!!
The computer I currently work with has helped me dispel a lot of myths I had about computers. As a sweet innocent kid, uninitiated to the world of these machines, I used to believe lots of good things about them. My eyes now opened, I put forth in front of you a few common misconceptions we have about comps:

Myth #1: Computers never get tired.

Reality : Remember this was one of the first things we were taught in school about the advantages of computer? It couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, what else would you say about a computer which disconnects net connection on its own after about half an hour, consistently, everyday… and then, when I leave it alone and untouched for a while, it obliges me again and lets me sit online for another half an hour. That is a classic symptom of tiredness if anything ever was!!!


Myth #2: Computers are very fast.

Reality : Well, I agree most computers are, but my computer? Ha-ha no way!! It’s still a big mystery why a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 256 Mb RAM would take (no exaggeration) 15 minutes to perform a simple task like closing a word document!!


Myth #3: Computers are accurate and precise.

Reality : Accurate they might be, but precise??? No ways!! One moment, it gives me the right result, and the second moment, without me making any changes; it gives me that favourite fatal error!!!

Myth #4: Computers DO NOT have feelings.

Reality : Now that’s a positive untruth. My office computer, very surely, hates me. It has mood swings, and it goes through emotional highs and lows! It’ll work fine all morning; give no errors, atleast give proper logical reasons for whatever errors it does give. Then in the afternoon, it will simply go crazy. I do everything in my capacity to cajole it back into working fine, I switch it off twice, I restart it once, I pray to the god of all things electrical… but to no avail. It stubbornly persists in giving me its favourite fatal error, and closing all applications suddenly without warning!! And then to make me feel worse still, as soon as I call any senior to check what’s wrong with it, it will start working perfectly fine and act docile again.


All said and done, inspite of ranting so much I immensely enjoyed the intern as well as working on the proj this time... But I really think someone should do some research on all different types of errors in various softwares and state in simple english language what they really mean!!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

A total copy-paste post this one is. I realised that I did start the blog at a wrong time. Perhaps should have waited till the end semesters started. With all the project work and stuff, all I can think of writing revolves around matlab and the traffic in Pune (more on that later) Anyways here is what I wanted to share.

Was reading this frustration-inspired poem on Shantanu's blog today. And since I was in a mood to waste time anyways, read the original again after ages. I have been in a poem appreciating mood since I wrote one during the exams, so went ahead and read this article about it and its interpretation. Felt wonderful about raading and appreciating poems after a long long time. Do check it out.