La Premiere Anniversaire!

And, so it happens that, Randomness Redefined completes one year. :)



Last year, on the 30th of May, after many a failed attempt at creating a blog, I started off with "A Journal? Definitely Not." Over the year, 40 posts and around 2.5k hits, I would like to thank each and everyone of you here for reading, encouraging, criticizing, commenting, liking and sharing my posts. Thank you all so much and I hope you will want me to blog more.

La premiere anniversaire! :)

Randomness Redefined!

Rajkiran Rajkumar

How huge Facebook actually is!

Disclaimer : This is any sort of facebook ad, and neither am I an advertiser. I'm just a undergrad who hopes to be placed in the aforementioned company, somewhere in the future! :D

Everyone knows that Facebook is huge, in terms of people, activity, and lots of other stuff. There was this discussion on Quora on whether Facebook notifications were kept count of. An interesting topic, I thought and it struck me that I should try to find it out myself. Following some of the most randomly recent stuff, I sought to find out this and I came up with the following stuff.

Likes :

There you go, "id=2707916356750". A 13 digit value! If these were in fact, in order of uniqueness, since Facebook maintains a timeline which keeps an account of all activity on Facebook, I'm guessing that this IS a unique 'like' identifier, which then means that there are more than 2 trillion likes on Facebook already. And that was a month back. Maybe millions more by now :-P

Then, as it did, my curiosity went deeper and I found something similar with groups too.



There you go again, "....groups/350924038264868/" A 15 digit value! Now, that would possibly mean that there are more number of groups than there are likes which seems slightly absurd. But then, considering that there are different types of groups and each one is indexed in a different way, some of the digits could stand for an indexing code maybe. But then, I'm just guessing :-D

However, this does give an idea about how large Facebook is, in terms of 2 very big numbers or so it seems. Who knows?  Explore around!

Have your fun with Facebook :D

Avengers!!

I went to Avengers today. Plan - Sathyam / INOX. Actual - Vettri. Apparently they renovated Rakesh and figured that Tambaram, Chrompet n surroundings had gotten good enough to come for an English 3D movie

Reached the theatre at 2 30 for the 2 40 show and got the tickets. Went in, and wow!

"Namma Rakesh theatre-ah idhu?". Renovations were very good and I was beginning to get restless for the start of the movie, kindled by the 3D trailers of MIB3 and The Amazing Spiderman.

The movie was simply brilliant with good weightage to all superheros. Believe me, bloody hard to have 6 superheroes and still pull the rabbit from the hat! Two and half hours went magically and for the first time ever, I didn't eat popcorn! :D

The sheer brilliance of the movie brought out by classy dialogues and timely comedy  couldn't have been better. However, the very best was when Captain America gives instructions to all and finally to Hulk, "Hulk? Smash!". Hulk thrashing Loki like a "alasi potta thundu" had everybody in splits.

Confidence when Downey Jr. says "Genius, Playboy, Billionaire and Philanthropist" is just too good. His feelings for Pepper are more intimately revealed. "Phil? His first name is 'Agent' ". Haha :D

However, I did felt that Captain America formed more of the backbone for the team than a leader-up-front. More scenes could've been centered around him. All in all, a good tone-setter for the semester exams to follow :D

Maths book, where are you?

A Privilege, I might say?

BERTIE
True, you never called yourself ‘Doctor’. I did that for you.
BERTIE (CONT’D)
No diploma, no training, no qualifications. Just a great deal of nerve.
LIONEL
Ah, the star chamber inquisition, is it?
BERTIE
You asked for trust and total equality.
LIONEL
Bertie, I heard you at Wembley, I was there. I heard you. My son Laurie said “Do you think you could help that poor man?” I replied “If I had the chance”.
BERTIE
What, as a failed actor!?
LIONEL
It’s true, I’m not a doctor, and yes I acted a bit, recited in pubs and taught elocution in schools. When the Great War came, our boys were pouring back from the front, shell-shocked and  unable to speak and somebody said, “Lionel, you’re very good at all this speech stuff. Do you think you could possibly help these poor buggers”. I did muscle therapy, exercise, relaxation,  but I knew I had to go deeper. Those poor young blokes had cried out in fear, and no-one was listening to them. My job was to give them faith in their voice and let them know that a friend  was listening. That must ring a few bells with you, Bertie.
BERTIE
You give a very noble account of yourself.
LIONEL
Make inquiries. It’s all true.
BERTIE
Inquiries have been made! You have no idea who I have breathing down my neck. I vouched for you and you have no credentials.
LIONEL
But lots of success! I can’t show you a certificate - there was no training then. All I know I know by experience, and that war was some experience. My plaque says, ‘L. Logue, Speech  Defects’. No Dr., no letters after my name.
(with mock seriousness)
Lock me in the Tower.
BERTIE
I would if I could!
LIONEL
On what charge?
BERTIE
Fraud!

 

This is an excerpt from the movie, "A King's Speech". A wonderful movie, I got to watch it only yesterday. This dialogue particularly stood out from the whole movie purely because of its sheer brilliance and weight.

Often, mistakes happen. More often, in interpretation. Even when someone is crystal clear, misinterpretation can happen. The chance to explain, or clarify, in that case, becomes a privilege and a subject matter of trust.  Be it any case, after the mistake has happened, the question of "Who's first?" simply vanishes.

 

The rambling will end here and if you are so free enough to read through this, you would also be to watch the movie. Please do! :D

Just choose!

You can make a choice.

You can decide what you want.

After all, it is your life.

You can choose to

Blame fate.

Cry.

Be desperate.

Curse your bad decisions.

Beg God for something good.

Be depressed about your misfortunes.

Wait for something good.

Ruin your beautiful today.

Hesitate.

Forget and be haunted by it.

Look back and regret what you didn't do.

Or

You can choose to

Take things as they come.

Laugh.

Be patient.

Learn from your bad decisions and move on.

Thank God for making today a memory, or an experience.

Look out for whatever good that you have, and feel, "It ain't so bad!"

Strive and deserve.

Do something that'd make it memorable.

Step-forward.

Forgive and feel proud.

Look back, smile heartily and walk forward.

"I am what I am, because I choose to be.". You are, too. Just choose.

Two years

March 19, 2010. Uff, an end to misery. Hectic schedules would come to an end. I could wake up at 8 after 3 long years. I could watch Naruto from 9 to 5. I could eat and sleep whenever I want. Yes, I had completed my 12th std exams. I still remember, these were my exact thoughts when I came out of the exam hall.

But March 19, 2012. Looking back today, there was much more to it. The year had so many memorable events to it, only to be masked by the insanely important BOARD EXAMS!!

I still remember,

Going to classes at 8 05 and finishing breakfast by 8 10, before the teacher comes, shoving whatever was in the box blindly.

Starting a cold war with Maths ma'am because she didn't let me sit with my friends.

Being an all-boys team and winning the School Rangoli competition.

Coincidental unshaven face becoming a perfect make-over for the politician's role in the drama that we staged.

Writing 3*2 = 5 and missing out a 200 in maths (LOL :D )

Calling friends and trying to put up a schedule for half-an-hour and finally saying "Ada poda. Paathukkalam." before hanging up.

Specifically requesting Thyagu sir to attend the evening batch (All Arul Institute students would know why. ;-) )

Pleading with Arul sir that we'd write tests early morning so as to accommodate the schedule.

Watching  Yu Yu Hakusho, Hungry Heart and AstroBoy and discussing them in class.

Half and hour prep-time for next micro-test that turned into sleep-time.

Wantedly leaving notebooks in the Sanskrit class and interrupting both French and Sanskrit classes.

Echoing CS class answers sitting in the corridor (we were Bio students btw. )

Going flower-searching, the day before practicals.

Playing Kings(Dodgeball or whatever you call it) during PT sessions, because that was the only possible game in our school ground.

Cricket match after the end of every micro-test series.

Singing "Happy birthday" randomly whenever English teacher starts advising.

Records, observations, tests, exams, practicals, revisions. I can only laugh at those memorable times.

Whatever said, school was special because that is where we learnt to have fun, enjoy yourselves and get that 'come-what-may' attitude. College? That's a different roller-coaster, all together.

Memories, and so so many of them. I do miss school :)

The Smile

First of all, I haven't been a hosteler. The last time that I was away from family was during the NCC camp, which was in 9th standard.

 

However, whenever family conversations come up, as they have so many times, most during the 12th standard holidays, "Be prepared to live in a hostel!" was a common sentence, which would inevitably be followed by long speeches, on how bad, a hostel can turn out to be. My usual retorting rant would be, "Ah! No problem at all.. Plus, you wouldn't be nagging me at all times Ma :D ". I'm pretty much sure this would've happened to every single college-student out there.

During sometimes when I was very very jobless(this happened a lot during 12th holidays), my thoughts would drift to "Life as a hosteler". And, I tell you, imaginations can be very hilarious.

But then, I am not a hosteler. I'm a day-scholar(read poor soul) who commutes from Tambaram to CEG, everyday. Travel was, ohmygod, a bad bad nightmare(I know, nightmares are already bad :D ). Getting used to it took almost a semester. Nowadays, though, it is actually enjoyable. For example, like the green chudhidhar. LOL :D

But coming back, as I said, I've never lived the life of a hosteler. Hell, I thought, I'd never miss anyone if I were a hosteler. But yesterday, perspectives changed. My friend Karthikeyan's parents had come from his hometown. You should've seen the smile on his face when he saw them. Wah, priceless.

That was joy, coming at the bottom of the heart. I realized that "Everyone can talk the talk, but only a few, walk the walk" like how uncle says in Jackie Chan adventures.

P.S.: Home, sweet home. Nothing can substitute it :)