Spams

These spammers sure have become quite innovative, what with super cool spam filters employed by Google, Yahoo etc. There hasn't been any spam mail in my gmail inbox since ages. But all this changed today. A teeny tiny spam mail managed to fool the formidable gmail spam filters which usually work quite well and very rarely spell out false positives. The GMail team at google sure has some talented people but then I guess, these spammers too sometimes think out of the box.

So how did this celebrity spam mail, if you like, manage to outwit the carefully coded filter ? Ah it was simple, the actual "spam stuff" wherein the senders usually advertise viagra and stuff was shown using an image and the body of the mail was quite harmless as if written by a teenager to his buddy. Not trying to sell anything, not having any "keywords" etc. However the meat was in the image which clearly listed out prices of various aphrodisiacs and also had the name of website selling this stuff. All the information conveyed and the police (the spam filter) was caught napping.

Some creative rogue eh..!

Here's to the crazy ones..

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs 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 praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things. They push the human race forward.
While some 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.

Mail to batch, from EPFL, Nearing the coming football tourney

It is a matter of deep concern that in our 4 year history at IIIT, we guys have come close to winning plenty of tourneys but have never actually won any single sporting cup. As must be known to all by now, The Football tourney of this semester has been announced. I know many of us are not at college right now, some of us are abroad, while others are in various cities of India doing their respective internships. However, we still have a sizeable presence in college and some of the key players of old times are still at the place where all the action is going to be.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a batch, long suppressed, finds utterance. This moment is here, now. We might be famous amongst our juniors as people who did the max. "bakar" in campus but this is our chance to show them, We can play Ball too. I call upon all concerned in campus to give it your max. Sleep,Movies, Comp Games, Chatting etc would go on forever but the Inter Semester football tourney is now, only once and then it'll never return, atleast for us. When we will be fighing together against a common adversary for a common goal. We take pride in the unity and spirit of our B2K3, what good is this spirit if we cannot muster enough courage to fight together when the odds are stacked up against us.

All this may seem to be bantering of a fool who sits on his desk and asks others to sweat it out, but trust me, Never in history of our batch Was So Much Owed By So Many To So Few. I myself would love to come and play with you, but that is impossible, however I don't think that, that really matters. You guys, in campus, are there and now. Forget your small number, forget your past skills. The moment is in your hand. The moment to embed your names in the annals of glory of B2K3. Grasp it. Practice and Practice hard. No adversary is strong enough to beat B2K3 if you have practiced enough, as a team.

Let other batches know, that B2K3 will not go down without a fight. We shall fight on the 25 yard line, we shall fight in the mid field, we shall fight in the flanks and in the centre, we shall fight in the goalpost; we shall never surrender. Make them jump through hoops to earn every single point against B2K3 and let them wonder how when a batch, reduced to just quarter of its actual size can still fight on, like a Giant. Let them marvel at our spirit and let them look at our batch with admiration. Only then, the true glory would be ours.

Batchmates in college, I have nothing to offer you now but blood, toil, tears and sweat.Practice and Practice hard..

Only then will eternal glory be yours.

All the best..The Best wishes of our entire batch are with you always..
-
Vikram

P.S : Parts of this mail are borrowed from famous sources but these were the best words I could find to convey my feelings right now.

Holi Party

Holi has surely never been a big deal. I mean sure it is one of the very well known festivals but somehow its Winter friend, Diwali beat it always in terms of the attention I (and most people I know) decide to bestow upon it.

However when you are abroad the love of "anything Indian" naturally is very high. The Holi festival and the way we celebrate it, has certainly not much parallel in the rest of the world. Also when you are abroad, the enthusiasm to do your "Indian thing" is all the much more. Thus was formed our fellowship of "Holi Celebrations" here at Lausanne. The fellowship consisted of :

and also Trivedi. Just that I couldn't find any pic with all of us in it. Also as all he did was sit around (:p) so no much qualms on excluding him..!

The first job of this fellowship was to orgainse holi celebrations and then a dinner or snacks maybe. But it looked like Sauron had his messengers far and wide. We visisted a variety of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi shops but could not find our beloved holi colours, or gulaal to make it clearer to my Indian audiences. After this initial debacle the fellowship was quite disheartened and the "enthu" had abated more or less. However a series of events led to yours truly letting his spanish flatmate know about Holi and her highness confused my "enlightening session about Indian festivals" into some kind of an invitation to some kind of a holi dinner party. Whats more she was gracious enough to rattle of the exact details of hers "conjured-up" party to everyone in the neighbouhood. More importantly she did mention about this to Rishi's flatmate and he in turn asked Rishi about it. Now, Rishi being a member of the holy holi fellowship was well aware that after the initial losses, the fellowship was just doing what it did best (yes sit on its bottoms) and there was no party. Now, this was heading towards disaster..!

Like in the famous LOTR, seeing the need of the hour, the fellowship swung right back into action. The rest as they say is history. Also as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll allow some JPGs to do the talking now. You can find the pics here :

http://picasaweb.google.com/suchit.agarwal/HoliDinnerAtVikrams
Please note that, all this was cooked by the holy holi fellowship from scratch.

Work Like..

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.