FIFA : You may leave but the Vuvuzela is here to stay

I don't really hate the Vuvuzela, initially I thought it was a good idea, it gave FIFA Worldcup 2010, the feel of barbaric fights in the ancient colloseums, where the audience could be most aptly described as savages. But unfortunately after a while the constant monotone of the Vuvuzela gets too irritating to handle.
The Vuvuzela has certainly grabbed international attention, and thousands of football fans around the globe are literally begging FIFA to ban these obnoxious instruments of mass disturbance from the FIFA 2010 Worldcup in South Africa.
However FIFA announced that it would not ban Vuvuzela because only a minor population has a problem with it, but the rest of the world enjoys it.
I think FIFA should consider checking the web once in a while, there have been websites with almost 80,000 complaints and petitions against the Vuvuzela. Here is one petition to ban the Vuvuzela http://www.petitiononline.com/2010WC/petition.html
People find the Vuvuzela sound obnoxious and irritating.
There have been complaints against the Vuvuzelas from the referies, players, commentators and the viewers alike. The sound of the Vuvuzela has been described by viewers as similar to the drone of a swarm of angry bees attacking the football ground.



The Anti Vuvuzela campaign, has opened up the market for Anti-Vuvuzela ear plugs, which are selling like hot cake in South Africa.
For viewers at home the immediate solution to escape the Vuvuzelas is to mute the sound and watch the match. However this kills out the commentary as well and people soon lose interest in the match.
Another solution with a little less compromise on the commentary is a 45 minute mp3 which claims to filter out the annoying sound of the Vuvuzelas by the method of phase cancellation, and the software for this is being sold for €2.95 at http://www.antiVuvuzelafilter.com/index.html
However audio engineers have suggested that this might not actually work, because the sound generated by the Vuvuzela is too random, even though it may sound like a constant monotone, the amplitude can vary based on audience excitement, and this variation cannot be predicted so it becomes very difficult for any sound wave to completely filter out the sound of the Vuvuzela.

It's tricky even for the broadcasters to muffle out the sound of the Vuvuzela as the wave patterns show the Vuvuzela sound has six strong harmonics, and notching it down would make it sound horrible.
Read http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8738604.stm for more information on drowning out the Vuvuzela.

There are however other (free) methods that you may adopt to make your football viewing more bearable, according to another audio engineer, if your tv has a graphic equalizer, you can turn down the 300Hz frequency and bring up the other frequencies, this will drown out the sound of the Vuvuzela, however this may also cause the commentary to sound a bit unnatural and funny, but beggars are not choosers so for now this is one of the best methods we 've got.

Thought Train #1 : Robin Hood Release date to Flaw in Back to the future.

Thought train is tracing back the thoughts in your head to see where they came from.
It is an interesting exercise and you might be surprised to see how unrelated your initial thought and the final conclusion can be.

So, this was today's thought train

#1 Saw tweet about Robin Hood releasing in India next week.

#2 Googled and found out exact date of Robin Hood release.

#3 Remembered, last time I googled I found a page on Robin Hood goof ups, one of them was :
"A title card identifies the historical period as the "turn of the 12th century," but the story actually takes place around 1200 A.D., the turn of the 13th century."

#4 I began wondering how a year 12xx can be 13th century. The first 100 years. 0-100 AD must have been the 1st century, hmm.. that means the 100-200 must have been second.

#5 I then began thinking about a previous thought I had, on how it would be better if we calculated our money as multiples of 500. Meaning we should count Rs. 1000 as 2 units, this will give a more realistic idea of how much we have and how much we can spend, when we talk in thousands of Rupees.

#6 The idea of century was similar to my idea of 500 Rupee units. I thought we lived in 21st century now, and now when we think back 21 AD seems so long ago, and the technology then was so primitive. Then i began wondering if people in 2100th century (if humans still exist) will think back and wonder how primitive we (21st century people) are!.

#7 I began thinking, how much the technology would have improved by 2100th century, if only there was a way I could see all that in my life time. TIME MACHINE :D

#8 But then I thought that the chances of someone inventing a time machine in my lifetime is very less. So, if someone invented the time machine in the future, he could come back in time and tell us how to make one.

#9 Then I wondered, if he (someone from the future) has already invented the time machine, whats keeping him. Why isn't he coming now, and telling us how to make one.

#10 Then I remembered all those movies about time travel, which postulated how things would go horribly wrong if someone messed with the space time continuum. Which reminded me of the movie "Back to the future".

#11 Then I realised there was a flaw in the movie, if Marty prevented his parents from getting married, his existence would be erased from the future (that was the whole theme of the movie),BUT if Marty's existence was erased from the future, then he wouldn't have returned in time to change the past anyways, thereby actually ending up not changing anything.


In your FACE Steven Spielberg :D

The Quark Experience

Yesterday our annual technical festival QUARK '10 ended.
It's not a technical festival anymore btw, its an INNOVATION FESTIVAL and India's first in that matter, big deal :-/ .

Anyways, the most memorable thing about QUARK were the messages.
We had this Messaging System set up for sending notifications via SMS to participants.

The intention was noble :P, however like most well intended plans, even this one went horribly wrong.

They sent way too many SMS's, and people had no option to block them, and the students kept on cursing and they kept on sending and it was a big mess.

I mean this was one of the messages :

PJ OF THE CENTURY:
Q.Who is the leader of ducks ?
.
.
.
.
.
Ans. Frog
Why?
.
.
.
.
Bcz frog is Mainduck. (main duck)

LOL, even though i enjoyed the joke, this example serves my purpose of demonstrating how useless some of those messages were, for the participants.


It seems this guy, Nitant Tattar (name changed), who was in charge of sending these SMS's seemed to be really enjoying this, when asked "Why he was sending so many?" his reply was "I control the population", with that he probably meant he controlled the "crowd". But again, who knows.. :P

So now that Quark is finally over, its good to see my mobile phone not vibrating every few minutes, I decided to write

An Ode to The Great Nitant Tatar . . .

THE SMS SONG

That friendly vibration in my pocket
what could it be, ahh just fock it..
that dwelling place wherein my cell abode
I set my phone to silent mode
Whom could it be?
it could be she..



expectantly i reach for thee,
peee peee peee peee
rose from within the crowds
that dreadful sound
it's all around.


big and small
fools and wise
take your phones,
and stand in line
check your messages one more time
just being formal, ain't no crime
friends, family, loved ones who?
you may think, u have a clue
with expectant glee
you stare at the screen
but alas, its just my work
that was another one from TM-Quark


Then finally we got to meet,
the real man behind the scenes,
"I control population" remarketh he
summer breeze and winter chills
did he say, he sells i-pills?
no you fools!,that's not what he meant
What he meant was
he controls thee

FIN!

Exam Blues

Test 2, this time right after Waves, (and yea winter was never that hot!)
Didn't even have time to do the minimal preparation I used to have before the other tests.
We are BITSGians of course, we know it is better to study beforehand and not wake up nights, burning the midnight oil, (in this case boiling water for the midnight maggi) before exams trying desperately to finish our courses..
we know this..

but where is the fun in that..

We are not thrill seekers, we do not wish to test our vessels, see how much we can push our mind and body to learn the most in the least possible time, believe me, we are none of those.

We are here to have some fun, and as i have learned in my 20 years of experience..studies and fun, rarely go together ;).

So, we try to reduce the studying part of our lives to a minimum.

BUT That's not all, we study two days before the exams, and even in those 2 days of compressed learning we have to watch our favourite tv shows, check out our profiles on the millions of social networking sites we are a member of..read jokes, blogs and even learn a few things, which are of no use in any case.

So, here I am once again, (Test tomorrow) and me, writing a new blog entry, yet to start preparation for my exam.

This is the BITSGian way, better get used to it :P