An Electromagnetic Love Letter

 From

Mr. Mike Rowave
House no: e^2 (rounded to next highest integer)
GSM Street
Entropy City
Pin no: 101001 (Huffman encoded)

To
Ms. AnnTina
C/o Mr. Marconi
House no: 22/7 (approx.)
Shannon Street
Bode City
Pin no: 110010 (Lempel-ziv coded)

Dear Ms. AnnTina,

Yesterday I saw you standing at the top of a tower with a beautiful pair of color coded resistors and a perfectly matched inductor & capacitor. Seeing the perfect parabolic shape and the perfectly symmetric circuit you have, my heart beats increased at the rate of 20 dB/decade with an amplification factor of 100. The electromagnetic waves that you radiated intercepted my heart and started oscillating in there, I waited for the oscillations to damp away but it exponentially increased and my poles started to drift to the right half of my heart’s S plane. I immediately realized that I was in love with you and decided to write this letter. From the moment I saw you, my square waved life got differentiated to sudden spikes with double amplitude and I realized that without you my system violates the stability criterion. I analyzed both our circuits using small signals and deduced that our hearts and souls are of the same frequency & phase and therefore interfere constructively. Then I applied the boundary conditions to solve the continuity of our love and inferred that you are the only one for me like an electron for a hole. Together we can achieve infinite gain & unlimited bandwidth and hence become the ideal system for lossless affection. Please do not filter my unquantized love for you as I hope that my phase shift keying will unlock the deepest recesses in your heart. In which direction and with what amplitude should I transmit my love for you to achieve the maximum love transfer and  minimum attenuation in your heart? Am I elliptically or circularly polarized? Please solve me.

With lots of decibels,

Mike Rowave (3.25 Giga 'Heart'z)

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   "An Electromagnetic Love Letter" by Thomas Sebastian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

'21' , The Privileged

I turned 21 a week ago. So, no b'day wishes. (Got reminded of the fact that i'm 'marriable')

Other permissible activities across the world (Courtesy:- Wikipedia):

• In the United States, 21 is the minimum legal age at which one can purchase and drink alcoholic beverages.
• It is also the age at which it is legal to gamble.
• A person who is 21 or over may also rent a car.
• It is also the age where one can legally buy tickets for minors who want to see an R-rated movie. That individual must also see the movie with them as well.
• It is also the minimum age at which one can purchase a handgun or rent/use one without supervision.
• In the UK, 21 is the age when a person can become a member of Parliament, hire a car and adopt a child.
  

The Rookie Bargainer That Is Me

"Here's the rule for bargains: Do other men, for they would do you. That's the true business precept."
                                     -- Charles Dickens

          I've always wanted to improve my bargaining skills and i got the perfect opportunity for that when i went to b'lore with my chums. Well, i was planning on a shopping spree plus an opportunity to booze up. Shopping spree just means hunting for cheap t-shirts and fake watches. The only branded thing i wear is my beloved nike shoes (but that too, one i bought at a discount from the factory outlet). Yup i'm not a sucker for brands, i look for cheapness and utility, a trait that is passed on to me from generations. But, unfortunately, yours truly doesn't exhibit good bargaining prowess. So for the benefit of the posterity i decided to improve upon it.

DAY 1:

I went to this place called commercial city. There was a plethora of shops juxtaposed in that long never-ending road. Saw a young chap selling fake esprit and diesel watches. His seemingly innocent face made me want to attack him. I scanned all the watches and put up a mature face with an omniscient look.

me (taking the esprit watch): kitna?

young chap: 220

me: nahin nahin, 200.

young chap: 200, leeloo.

me: uh!! (damn it, should have told a 100)

Nevertheless, i bought the watch.

DAY 2:

After a not so succesful barganing attempt , i went to this cool dude, who is a self proclaimed maestro in bargaining. He took me out to some corner of the city, planning to buy a watch for himself (fake ofcourse). He picked up a seemingly good old man, senility seemed to have taken the better out of him.

cool dude (picking up a watch): ye kitna ka hai?

not-so-cool old man: 225

cool dude: 25 ko dedo

not-so-cool old man: @#$$#@$#@................@#$%$@##$@

Though i didnot learn much about bargaining , i definitely learned a few "good" hindi words.


P.S. The watch i bought for 200 bucks still works perfectly without a single complaint so far.

When 'Unluck' Strikes

"Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong"
                                                                 --Murphy's Law

Day: August 9 (A bright sunny morning which suddenly got overshadowed by funny looking clouds)
Event: The dreaded Communication Engg lab exam
Problem: By hearted almost all the circuits for the exam. Resister values, capacitor values, pin numbers and what not (using my special memory aiding mnemonics and repetitive cramming). No clue about how the design is, no idea about the working, no idea about the application (Yes, I'm labeled electronics engineer, sigh!). But that was the last measure taken by an incorrigible procrastinator.

Reached college by 10; my slot was scheduled at 11. Heard that the external was a draconian martinet who found pleasure in castigating the students. I had to study one more circuit (AM modulator using differential amplifier, to be exact). By hearted that one too, but not so well. Slot came, entered the lab, took the question sheet, opened -- Qn: Design and setup an AM circuit for frequency 500 KHz using 2KHz sine wave and demodulate it. Fuck! Wasted all my memory and got this scewed up question I studied in the last minute. I quickly jotted down all the compnent values in the answer sheet as I did not trust my short term memory. Drew the circuit , made up a 'never heard before' design using the memorized values, that's what I call reverse engg (usually its the other way round, you get the values by designing, but come on, these are desperate measures). Showed the circuit and got approval. Hastily collected the required components, assembled the circuit, switched on the supply and voila!! There lies my B-E-A-yootiful amplitude modulated sine wave in the CRO. 10 minutes is all it took and here is me, the arrogant (temporarily though) lil genius with my sexy AM wave. Got up, held my head high, called the external (he's like 'evan aareda'), and I proudly showed him the CRO screen. Wait a sec, the screen is blank (Shit does happen).

ext: Evideyaado o/p?
me: (frantically turning all the knobs) Saar, o/p ippum kittiyethaayirunnu.

(ext staring at me)

me: sir, one minute, ippum o/p undaakki tharaam.
ext: undaakkikondu thaan thanne avide irunnaal mathi.

(And he walked away saying something like 'raavile ooronnu irangikkoolum' )

Me still turning all the knobs. God, why is this happening to me. I havn't raped any girl, I havn't hurt any kid, still why?? After 2 hrs and 30 mins and a lot of adjustments, voila!!, again I got the o/p. Not sexy anymore, but deformed at parts. I didn't see the external anywhere near, so called the internal and showed her the o/p. O/p verified. Finally!!. I dismantled the circuit and waited for the external, ready for viva.

ext: thante o/p njaan kandillallo.
me: ??.......saar, I showed the internal.
ext: athonnum sheruyaavoolla, I want to see the o/p.
me: saar, I disassembled the circuit.
ext: ithonnumalla procedure. (Browsing through my answer sheet). Edo, thante demodulated o/p verify cheythittillallo.
me: deeemodulator!! (Fuck! I forgot that part)
me: (speechless)
ext: aaa, placed aayo?
me: yes
ext: evide?
me: XYZ Corp  
ext: nee okke avide pooyittu enna undaakkaana. (+ a lot of things which I don 'member & which I don’t want to 'member)
ext: ninaglokke electronics padichittu enthinaanu s/w field il pookunne. Valla MTech inum pokkoode.

(Yeah rite, I should go for MTech, end up as a lecturer in some screwed up college, go as external in some other screwed up college, and take the curses of all the overfed, ill begotten students over there)

After 5 minutes of verbal lashing (luckily I don't think anyone heard anything), my self respect was not just destroyed, it was annihilated. And after some not so impressive viva session, I walked out of the lab with head low, dilapidated self esteem and a sweat stained shirt. I hit the bed immediately after reaching home & woke up at 10 at night. And I "wished" everything was a bad dream. But wishes are just wishes. Sigh!

Update: Heard that though the external was hotheaded, he cleared those who got partial o/p. Kudos to him!!

                                                   

Yackety Yackety Yack