At long last, TCS IT Wiz finally arrived at Delhi. It felt like the most awaited event of the century. Everyone was waiting for it. And it brought back horrific memories of previous year. I really didn’t want this to happen again. But fate had other ideas.

With the noticeable absence of Mridul, our quizzing team had become relatively weaker. Saumey (my current quizzing partner) is only in ninth-class (which was the same class I was in last year), and he is still raw. But he does have a remarkably wide knowledge field.

Gyaan.in had threads on TCS IT Wiz, and questions on how to prepare about it even before you could say “Giri”. I felt really amused at all this. Because you really cannot “prepare” for this competition. Its that knowledge of all previous years and current affairs snowballed into a large one.

Just the day before TCS (30th October) was Dad’s birthday, so I was up quite late. Next morning, I reached school all excited and jumpy. Meena Ma’am informed me that TCS guys had requested us to send thirty teams. That is not a typo. Thirty teams! Too much. We were sending six. Under no circumstances am I going to list them here. Before leaving, I took Sir Alex Ferguson’s aashirwad. It really helped, though the potency was a little low (he has other important matters at hand as well).

Shikhar and his brother turned up late. He claims he was late and his driver did Burnout-style driving to get him there.

Puts Paul Walker to shame

School arranged only a Qualis for us. They obviously thought twelve people would sit comfortably in a eight-seater. With a driver.

Pictured: Comfort

This was the second-last image. I promise. Second-last.

So we stole Jaikishan’s Civic and Vedant’s Verna, and accommodated people into the Verna (the Civic was for return). It took a lotta time, and we finally reached the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

There was hardly any crowd. My guess was only four-hundred teams. After registration (and a quick chat with New Era guys), we made it to Dogra Hall, and grabbed seats. There was that usual survey and stuff, which could be exchanged for refreshments.

I looked around, and saw that the hall was full. But no people sitting on the floor like last time. Less people, better chances.

Giri made his trademark entry, and announced:

Due to overwhelming response, for the first time in the history of TCS IT Wiz, we are holding two prelims.

My heart sank. So there were a large number of people outside as well! Phew. My estimate was so wrong…

The prelims began, and it was easier than last time. We screwed up on that “decision engine” question, and wrote WolframAlpha, which was a common mistake many made. It was Bing. Saumey was excellent – contributing more than expected. He gave four out of twenty, which is quite good for a ninth class guy. He answered crucial questions like MNP and LinkedIn, which few knew. Kudos, kid.

Then we left for refreshments, and recession was visible. Pathetic food. Miserable sandwich, passable pattice, and, most importantly, Oyes wafers. Yes. OYES! The USP of Oyes was free points on cards, and ten would fetch us another Oyes! We immediately began collecting them, and accumulated eleven! Woot!

The second prelims were underway, and we waited forever. We were looking at the institute (where practically all of us wanted to be). Some kids had reached to the top of a building.

After a really, really long time, it was time to enter Dogra Hall once again. There was lot of pushing, and the entire stairway was jam-packed. TCS volunteers failed to control the crowd, which soon turned into a mob. Now, according to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, a crowd becomes a mob if it breaks something. Naturally, the crowd broke a glass pane, much to the anger of TCS guys.

Meanwhile, Shubham and Arvind did something great. They entered through another gate (which was closed for us, dunno why), pretending to have lost a water bottle.

When we finally reached Dogra Hall, they had reserved an entire row for us. Giri returned, and announced the results.

For the first time,  we have had nine-hundred-and-nine papers to check! I don’t think any quizmaster has had so many papers to check before. First, the answers.

Saumey and I had pretended to have got only eight or nine correct. At the end of the answers, we had got fourteen. Not enough, I thought. Fifteen weren’t enough last time.

Before I announce the qualifiers, I would like to recognize the top ten teams. The team which finished tenth is…

The entire hall is quiet. Nobody even breathes.

… Aditya and Saumey Jain of Montfort School.

NO!

We went on to the stage to collect a t-shirt, a book and a Rubik’s cube.

Which class are you in?

I’m in tenth and he’s in ninth.

To the audience : I just found out that the level of quizzing improves so rapidly in Delhi. These quizzers are from ninth and tenth. Give them a round of applause!

I don’t remember the other teams, but Sopandev from DPS Dwarka finished seventh. What was really agonizing was that he had exactly the same marks as that of the sixth qualifier, but lost out on starred questions.

New Era qualified, but not Prateek’s team! Young Arnav and Apratim had. DPS Noida, who finished second last year, were also on stage. DPS R K Puram qualified yet again, with quizzers from ninth and eighth. That was something. Even Vivek Nair and Karthik qualified; they finished eighth last year.

The finals were really easy. We got seventy percent of the questions right. Especially in the connect round.

DPS Noida won the finals. It was a great experience for all of us.

On the return journey, Shubham disfigured my Rubik’s cube.

2012 Release Poster

Director:  Roland Emmerich

Producers:  Roland Emmerich
Mark Gordon
Harald Kloser
Larry J. Franco
Ute Emmerich

Cast:

CGI as Awesomeness (in the lead role)

Supporting Cast

John Cusack as Jackson Curtis

Amanda Peet as Kate Curtis

Thandie Newton as Laura Wilson

Zlatko Buric as Yuri Karpov

Oliver Platt as Carl Anheuser

Jimi Mistry as Dr. Satnam Tsurutani

My past reviews have been pretty long and boring, so I’ll cut this one short.

Review: Is there anyone in this world, who has not escaped the clutches of Roland Emmerich? Ever heard of Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 BC? Definitely. So here comes another one, 2012, which is also based on Roland’s favourite theme: destruction. Now there are several apocalypse theories ranging from a huge asteroid hitting the ocean to Jeremy laughing on Candace, but Roland chooses the Mayan prophecy of solar fires which happens once every 600,000 years.  Incidentally, that is also the time Kolkata Night Riders will take to win the Indian Premier League. Once.

John Cusack plays Jackson Curtis, who is a failed novel writer and a divorcee as well. He now works as a limo driver to earn money, and that must be the reason Kate Curtis left him in the first place. Now Jackson meets a maniac in Yellowstone, who tells him why the world is ending, and also that the US Government has arranged ships (or arks) for their survival in the ocean, via a splendid amateur Flash animation. But what is not clear is, that why the government is keeping all this secret.

And Indian (Jimi Hendrix) informs a White House executive about the end of the world, by calling him to boiling Calcutta. It is also that same Indian who saves the world in the end, telling the same White House executive that a huge tsunami was coming over.

Towards the end you’ll realise that the Earth’s geography has changed dramatically. The African continent is now extremely fertile, and the south pole is stuck in the middle of the United States.

Like all of his previous movies (such as Independence Day, which is widely regarded as the worst movies ever to become a hit),  2012 is a big pile of noise and action, with absolutely no proper story or screenplay. It’s a ridiculous film. A pathetic one. A failure. And nothing extraordinary at all. The acting is poor, which is probably because there is no scope of acting here. The dialogue is ridiculous, and so are the facts. Dr. Satnam speaks in the way Americans would speak Hindi, not the way a native Calcutta guy would. In fact, he should not even speak Hindi, but Bengali, as he’s living in Calcutta! Another one: In a particular scene, Jackson’s plane takes off with family and Russian boss Yuri with a huge ash cloud behind them. So much ash in the air would definitely cause an airplane’s engines to go kaput. However, special effects are flawless, nothing like you’ve ever seen before. But Roland, you must realise (along with Michael Bay), that gone are the days when the audience could be won only on special effects! We need a solid plot, screenplay and acting to go with it, something which District 9 achieved successfully.

You must have realised by now, that 2012 is a bad film. It has been panned by critics all over the globe. But you know what? Once you finish watching the movie you actually feel its good, completely knowing the fact that you really shouldn’t have liked it. Is the dialogue silly? Yes. But does it make you laugh? Oh yes. Is it stupid? Of course. But do you really care? NO!

There are memorable moments in the movie, especially the one in which Jackson is driving the limo with his family at a high-speed, when the road is cracking beneath the car. Buildings are falling down, and the limo jumps right through them. Oh, how can you forget the scene were Gordon takes off in a plane, when the runway is crumbling behind? And that scene, where Yuri and the others are sitting in a sports car (was it a Porsche?), and after Jackson’s failed efforts to start it, he says

Eeengine. Staaart.

at which it promptly revs up.

When it ends (rather too stereotypically, with the hero getting lost and resurfacing when presumed dead), you feel happy. It’s global cooperation that saved the day. Which will save the day any day, even today.

2012 is a flawed, worthless and too long at two hours and forty minutes, it is an becomes edge-of-the-seat thriller with some brilliant moments, which makes it one of the must-see movies of the year.

Detailed Ratings (out of 10)

Rating: 6/10 (Good)

This. Is. The. Most. Irritation. Error. Message. Ever. And. So. Is. This. Writing. Style.

Seriously, when I get this, I freak out. What does this mean? That I’m not in control of my own computer? Shouldn’t I be incharge? But viruses think otherwise. They prefer to disable the task manager and the registry. And they amuse themselves. No amount of antiviruses out there can get rid of this. At least, that’s been the case with me. A Windows reinstall is always a viable option, but not in my case. My Intel 82845G Graphics Controller is so outdated, that even Intel doesn’t consider it to be worthy of getting a decent driver. The latest driver carries this stupid trojan, which disables important stuff. Tech gurus like me always like to mess up the Windows anatomy, and set it back again. Even novice users three-finger-salute Windows occasionally always, and kill processes. What now?

As always, here at Shadow Line comes another tutorial without using any third-party application. To fix this stupid error.

1] Open Notepad, by going to Start–>Run… and typing Notepad.

2] For enabling Task Manager, paste this:

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Or, for enabling Registry Editor, paste this:

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

3] Once you’ve pasted the required one, hit enter and open the Task Manager or Registry normally. Note that you’d have to do this always to open ‘em up

Lets take it a level further. Lets make a batch file, so that you can enable both with a single click from your desktop.

4] In Notepad, paste both the lines separated by a line.

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

5] After you’ve done that, go to File –> Save. Save it as fix.bat. You can replace fix by anything. But the .bat thingy is important. Save it at the desktop. Its easily accessible now. Double-click it, and you should see a command-prompt window for a split second. Open Task Manager and Registry editor normally now. You have to repeat this again, if you want to access the registry once more.

But if you’re the busy types, and you want someone else to do the dirty work, I’ll help you. Download the batch file itself.

So, thats it! Its fixed! But if you really want to stay away from all these viruses, I suggest you go elsewhere.

Whew. Long title.

At long last, Shikhar (who’s a fan of Metal Gear Solid, as the name of the blog shows) has compiled an archive of the quiz prelims.

Head over to his place.

I’ve given you the prelims, Now eat the finals. The prelims were compiled by Shikhar, and hosted by me. The finals are compiled and written by Shreyans, and hosted by me. You can now see how I love to take credit for others’ work and boost my blog views.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Finals

A small note here. This quiz archive is EPIC. It’s simply awesome! Download it for sure. At. Any. Cost. Shreyans has compiled a truly magnificent archive. Never before have a seen something like this. If possible, print it on photo paper and frame it.

TCS IT Wiz 2009 was held on 31st October 2009, and 909 teams turned up. I managed to finish tenth out of them (along with Saumey). DPS Noida won this year’s edition of TCS IT Wiz. You can download the quiz prelims here. Quiz finals are being prepared. More later.

Please give Shikhar complete credit for this work. It may have been hosted at my blog and typed by me, he made it a point to write them all down during the quiz (you can improve your handwriting, Shikhar).

Download the TCS IT Wiz 2009 Prelims

When George Bush waged war against Iraq, he found a pack of Ubuntu disks.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Thank you for the title, Shikhar.

After what seemed like eternity, Dynamix 2009 came at Ramjas, RK Puram. It was my first quiz of the year, let alone tech symposium, as H1N1 messed up my plans for others. Naturally, I was really excited.

We started out quite late. I had brought my entire collection of Digit magazines with me to pass the time.

Saumey-”Bhaiya, aapne Alienware laptop ka review padha?”

Me-”Nahi. Which month?”

Saumey-”October”

I opened it up to see a shiney ahuja Best Performer award. Because of a 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM, and two GeForce 285 GTX cards running in SLI with a gig of RAM each. Blew my head off!

Reached at about 9.20. Registered and ran for the quiz. Stopped in mid-way. Told to go to Audi. Stopped in midway. Told to go for quiz. Stopped in midway. Finally went to Audi.

As noticeable, Ramjas always has organisation problems. They’re well known for organising the most disorganised fest in the entire universe. They’re known for that in the Andromeda Galaxy as well. (Okay, that went too far). So when we (Saumey and me) eventually reached the quiz destination, it was already on. Problem was, Crossword and Quiz were on the same time. And I was taking part in both. Ashmeet, my Crossword partner, was already in the library. I had to hurry.

Unfortunately, the organisers weren’t too happy with all this.

Houston, we have a problem.

I begged and convinced them to let me participate in both.

“But you have to submit your quiz paper. Only then can you leave.”
But can’t my partner sit here and do the paper?”

“No”

“Why?”

“No”

(audible sigh)”Alright”

“But if you qualify in both, what will you go for?”

“Fat chance”

“But still…”

“I’ll choose at that time”

And so, the quiz began. The written prelim was tough. Not so tough, but tough. Negative marking wasn’t helping. First question was about some NewHoo. Dunno what it was. Lots of MCQs were also there.  Some were copied questions, like the MIME acronym. Remember seeing that in some quiz… There were two questions on MAC addresses.

And there were these to logos to conclude the prelims.

In addition to these being super easy (you’re FAIL if you don’t know these. What are you doing on a tech blog anyway?), we discussed the former one on our way to Ramjas! Nice, eh?

Having no time for pleasant surprises, I left for the Library, when Saumey went to swat flies in the Audi.

The Library is awesome. There are six (no less) split air conditioners there (though none were switched on). Way better than the Montfort library. Ashmeet was coolly doing the paper. He had managed two on twenty. When I was through, I had about eighteen on twenty.

Crossword Prelims was a joke. Just too easy. Repeat questions as well. Remember the clue “Michael went to see ET” at Exun? This one had “Michael, ET, Dell”. So simple. So stupid, being unable to think of another question, as it was there in the quiz prelims.

There was a question about the son of Zeus (four-letter). I’ve never played God of War, so I had absolutely no idea. Wrote “aero” (it fits). Turns out, it was “ares” (thank you, Wikipedia). This question is of little significance here, but look out for quiz finals.

There was another crossword clue which said something like Heroes of the movie 300 and enemies in Halo. Now, I’ve never seen 300. But I’ve played Halo. So I thought it must be the Covenant. They are the enemies in Halo. But didn’t fit. A spoof movie on 300 was Meet The Spartans, so the answer must be Spartans! Good clue, but wait. Spartans may be the heroes of 300, but they were NOT enemies in  Halo! This is a serious error! In fact, they helped defeat the enemies, the Covenant, in Halo Wars. Shikhar confirmed. He’s a big fan of Halo.

Easy prelims felt great, and it put me in another crazy situation. Damn. I’m qualifying for both. Now what?

And the inevitable happened. When Shikhar, Vinamra, Saumey, Ashmeet and me were discussing about an exoskeleton while munching on the world’s most deserving candidate for Shitty Patty of the World, it was announced that we had, indeed, qualified. For both. And both were to start at 11.30.

I requested the authorities with a similar conversation, that I can give the crossword in seven minutes flat, and then go for the quiz. They accepted, on the condition that no one would wait for me at the quiz, and I had to hand over the crossword paper.

Crossword finals were damn tough. Seemed tougher when we did it in seven minutes. Easiest question was “Main Protagonist of GTA4″. Didn’t get simple ones like “First commercial OS”. Also had good clues like “Wolverine was a hacker in this movie” (which was Swordfish were Hugh “Sexy” Jackman was a hacker; courtesy New Era, where Prateek the Great has infused his Wikipedia-sized knowledge).

Anyway, I rushed to quiz, where Saumey was sitting. I made a dramatic entry, skidded to a halt near my table, and sat down. The projection-on-wall displayed “Where are the NVIDIA headquarters situated?”

“Who’s direct?”

“Ours”

“Oh shit…”

“Answer, please?”

“California”

“That’s right. Its Santa Clara, California”

As usual, DPS RK Puram fought.

“Dude, California is like, a state. A huge state”

“But he gave  the answer”

“Dude! Everything is in California!”

“Fine. No points”

Which left me disappointed and breathless (as I had just run a floor downstairs).

The quiz continued, and it made me realise the WTFness of it. None of the questions were transferrable. And, in my breathlessness and disorientation, I forgot what Ray Tomlinson invented. D@mn it.

At the end of the first dry round, RKP was first, we were second, MSM was third, and the other school was fourth.

Next round, connect round. The craziest round of all. There are four images in each question, and answering one gives twenty points EACH. And getting all gives an additional ten points. That’s like ninety for each question, and only ten for first dry round ones. We and RKP were stunned. But it started anyway.

Both RKP and we didn’t get ours. I don’t remember their questions, but I certainly do ours. There was this sun sign, galaxy, and a picture of computers connected across the world. Answer was Ares. Couldn’t think of anything else, Dynafix? As Ares was already there in the crossword?

Next school had some easy question. Seventy points. MSM had the easiest of all. Chrome, Firefox and Tux, and this.

Okay, that was easy. This picture is Freedom Toaster. It’s essentialy for those who a) don’t have unlimited downloads b)who’re too lazy to download and c)both. I’m speaking about Linux distros of course! You take your own blank CD, and Freedom Toaster writes any distro for you. It’s a Mark Shuttleworth initiative, who, for the record, is the guy behind Ubuntu, and has also been to space for a vacation. Gives you the idea he that kind of guy who can afford stuff like this.

Now I knew this one, and offered to answer for no points. There was this guy sitting behind me with a heavily tattooed Dell laptop, and looked like he had made the quiz (not sure).

“That’s Freedom Toaster. You can get distros at that.”

“Correct. But no points”

“I’m not complaining. There’s only one in India. Trivandrum”

At which, that Dell guy shouts

“No. Bangalore”

“Trivandrum”

“Bangalore”

“Trivandrum”

“Bangalore”

“Really? Maybe”

Apart from noticing that both of us used the wrong names for Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram, I had my strong doubts. When I came home, I checked up Freedom Toaster’s site and opted to find a toaster. It produced unsurprising results.

What did I say?

So, kids, listen to the unicorn.

This round changed stuff. Now, MSM was first, the other school was second, RKP was third and we were fourth. Naturally, RKP couldn’t stand themselves losing, so they fought. I support them completely. This was ridiculous. With their pestering (and ours), Ramjas relented. The next round, the audio-visual round, which was to be a hundred points each, would now be only fifty. But no change in previous round. Unfair, I thought, but kept quiet.

In the final round, there was a video with another audio combined together. I really liked this round. The idea was really nice. I don’t care if this was ripped off from somewhere.

RKP got the first chance, and they had that Intel ad music (the USB one) and this awesome speech (in video. The text in the video, not the original video itself)

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them. Disagree with them. Glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world
Are the ones who do

It was a really easy one, and they garnered fifty points. It was Apples Think Different campaign. Of course, I’m not whining that they always get easy ones (it wasn’t really easy. I just chanced to know about this).

Next was our turn. We had some heavy metal soundtrack playing and a war game in the video.

“Wait. I’ve heard this! Yes! It was in the G@teway intro video. Er, no. It wasn’t. Ah! Now I know! Its the soundtrack for Need For Speed Most Wanted“

“Correct. Name the song”

“Er, I’m sorry?”

“Name the song”

“Are you kidding me? There must be fifteen songs in that game, and you exepct me to memorise all the names?

“Alright, I’ll give it to you. And the video”

“Er, I dunno. Call of Duty?”

“No. Army of Two“

So we got fifty points.

I can’t remember what the next school got, but I do remember what MSM got. I think they got The Matrix soundtrack, and a game trailer which said From the 2007 Game of the Year.

“Er, Crysis“

“Alright”

DPS-”Wrong! They said Crysis. Its Crysis Warhead“

“Yes it is. No points”

At which RKP was jubliant. They had won, and that is why they wanted MSM to get it wrong. MSM were second, and we were fourth. We fought against that stupid points system, and signed our own death warrant. Sob.

Shikhar, Vinamra and Karan couldn’t get anything at S.Y.N.C.E.D, although they did have a cheesy concept. They ran out of time. Also, I was told, Ramjas had a trial version of Fruity Loops. How diabetic.

According to unofficial results, we came third in the crossword. New Era was second, and RKP was first. There were other events the next day, including the answer to this PJ.

Q: Woh kya hai jo Ravan akele kar sakta hai, par Ram nahi?

A: Group discussion.

Didn’t get anything in that as well. And others. In the end, Montfort returned empty handed from Ramjas, as they did not have a third prize, which is bad. I always get third in every Ramjas event.

Now I found out why I go to Dynamix. Apart from criticizing poor management, they do have a great quiz and crossword. Trust me. Quiz was actually very good and so was crossword, apart from the obession with certain stuff like gaming. But poor management let such a great event down. I just hope it gets better next year. Congrats to DPS RK Puram, though. Although they did fight at the quiz, they answered superbly. They deserved to win it, and the overall trophy as well.

Dynamix guys promised they’d upload answers on their website. I don’t think they’ve kept their promise.

If you’re still reading this uber-long post, thank you for having the patience. Happy belated Diwali, guys.

I’ve lost track of the number of times ISPs have lied to us about the download speeds they offer us. Novice users can also get confused about the difference between Mbps, Kbps, MBps and KBps (for the record, Mbps is mega bits per second, and MBps with a capital B is mega bytes per second. Mega bits has a value eight times that of mega bytes per second).

Speedtest.net is a funky place to know your true speed. It calculates ping time(in milliseconds), upload speed and download speed (in Mbps).

Just visit the site, and wait till Speedtest.net automatically detects your nearest server. Click on the yellow pyramid to start the test. The coolest part of the test has to be the speedometer.

Also, something really great is that based on the download speed, you also have an idea about the time it will take to download a particular movie or song. Also, you can copy some direct links (to images) and forum links (for embedding) to boast about your download speeds, especially if you have an internet backbone connection (whoever’s got that, I envy you. Just wait till you see my download speed).

Do you have any idea about the torture I go through everyday?

Unfortunately, not all have the convience to download movies via torrents. Lets face it: torrents do take time to download an entire movie to your HDD. Also, you may want to watch only a portion of a movie. So download the entire freakin’ clip?

This is where QuickSilverScreen (or QSS, as they’d like to call themselves) comes in. Its great for watching new movies, with respectable video quality, especially if they’re atleast a week old.

The service is just so amazingly fast, you wouldn’t even realise you’re actually through. No sign-in and other hassles required at all! And most importantly, its free.

In case you’re wondering, this is not a sponsored post.