Saturday, June 7, 2008

My guilty conscience

I am very much guilty as an IT engineer in having a major hand for the recent hike in petrol price. Seriously, the industry i am working simply ruins everything! Infact, in the near future, many riots/bandhs etc., are expected. This is the one responsible for increasing our already worse hit inflation. If you see or analyze deeply, you can find out why only IT industry. For those who dont know what inflation is, i can give a brief explanation. Its just every individual's spending power. More the spending power, more the inflation. Inflation should be there but in a very controlled manner. I dont want to speak lot into that.
I have few predictions on how the future of India is going to be.
Growth is good. Growing too much is also fine. But it should be done in a controlled environment. For example, you can extract huge amounts of energy from an atom. But if its not controlled, we know wat'l happen. The growth in India is going to bring in hell a lot of ramifications. For instance, take US. They are also growing, having problems with their economy as well. But again, they have a good design at the top most level. Atleast a design far better than ours. For a country of such immense potential itself, they cannot suppress few problems happening in their economy. Then take the case of a country like India where we have leaders who are ultra illiterates and greedy fellows who for once have never thought about the needs of the public. Exceptions may be there, but on a whole they're just shit.
What i am trying to say is the growth in India is not controlled. Many think tanks have to take major and crucial decisions in the top most level which lacks heavily in our country. Because if you take a minister in the top level, he surely will be a t-kada owner or something in his early ages.
A price hike in petrol is going to affect the transportation heavily. It is going to reflect in all ways. For instance, take the food price. I have seen within one year, the place i used to have lunch have increased their rate from 25 to 33 which when you calculate in percentage is simply not acceptable. The common man is affected here. Rich gets richer and poor gets poorer. This is like a virus and the effects will be very well seen in the near future.
The problem is many IT people dont even know how they have done a damage to our economy. The impact done by us is very huge. We are the ones responsible for increasing the real estate prices. We are the ones who have made this cash flow by leaps and bounds, encouraging banks to offer more loans. The gist here is inflation goes up when there is huge cash flow. And the team lunch/dinners etc - we have simply raised the demand in food and the hotel owners are having any cost they like. In my earlier days i use to order food by seeing the cost on the right side, but these days i hardly care for it. So, the hotel can charge any money they want. And that is going to increase the food price at the end of the day. I am very disappointed to see many people in IT industry not even knowing how the food price is going to increase just because he/she is having a luxurious team lunch.
So, as an IT fellow, is it possible for me to stop this? The answer is NO!. We have swallowed the poison. The effect has already started. The only thing that we can do right now is not spend our money unnecessarily. If possible, try not going for movie in the weekend. Reduce or discourage treats for birthdays, promotions etc., If possible, try totally to abolish this team outing!

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Computer games once i was addicted to....

I was a mad computer gamer once. Started with Dave, came across many sorts and types of games and was almost addicted to them. It took me almost ten years to overcome my craze for it. Will just list my once most favorite games below..

Racing games :

The racing games that i've almost played for god knows how many hours primely include Road Rash, and Need for Speed.


Road Rash



Need for speed 2


Need for Speed III - Hot Pursuit


Need for Speed IV - High Stakes


Need for Speed V - Porsche Unleashed



Need for Speed VI - Hot Pursuit 2


Need for Speed VII - Underground


Need for Speed VIII - Underground 2


Need for Speed - Most wanted.

Besides these, i've played many other racing games like superbike, F1, Sega Rally, Motocross madness, motorbike madness etc., Of these, the one i've completed within two to three days time was the need for speed mostwanted where you need to clear all the 15 ranking levels to reach the top meet the most number of cops chasin you.


Cricket Games:
I was a mad gamer of cricket too. If India tours Australia, then i also will create a tour in these games and will make my batsmen score centuries. I dont know why, but it gave myself and my soul some immense pleasure playing this game. I have to blame the AI in these games though. There will always be some expectations before a new release comes. But once you find the way to score runs easily, then it will no longer be fun. I remember my friend Jack playing the stupendous sixes when i was in hostel. This guy created a character called Jacque. And before Richie Benaud finishes saying 'Jaaacque', we all will hear a sound 'bhokk' and you can see sixes flying all over the ground. Phalgun tried very hard at this game until he too found his rhythm when he first scored 90 odd using Dravid in medium difficulty while we were in 2nd yr of our college. My friend Hari even started playing this game long time back. He is a master of EA Cricket 97.
Comparing the AIs of Brain Lara Cricket and EA, nothing much to tell compare actually :). As i said, if you find the technique to score runs easily, the game starts become boring. But not for guys like Madhan. He used to tell that these cricket games had to be played with a spirit. Yeah, it will sound funny. But i dont know where his spirit will be when he makes India score 1000+ and keep on supporting team Australia.
Special mention has to be made about the only test match myself and Baju played during our 2nd year in hostel. It was cricket 2002 i guess. I won the toss and elected to bat first. It was a five day test match!. Weather was great and pitch conditions favored batting. I used keyboard while he took joypad. It was versus type of game. I remember choosing India and he chose Australia. It was so funny, that he bowled to me for two full days. Although he racketed my top order, players from the tail like Bajji, Zaheer headed up and played the innings of their lives ;). I scored some 380 odd in 120 overs. Yeah! Baju bowled all 120 overs which meant some 750 odd balls. Thank god!, by the time indians got all out in their first innings, baju lost his nerve and we both accepted a draw on mutual agreement. Otherwise, i too would hav had to bowl for more than two days!! Those days i cannot forget!!


EA Sports Cricket 2000


Brian Lara Cricket 2000


EA Cricket 2002


Internation Cricket Captain 3


EA Cricket 2004


EA Cricket 2005


Brian Lara Cricket 2006


EA Cricket 2007

The FIFAs
Another game that i've played like mad was FIFA. They all were from EA Sports. Never liked the Pro Evolution Soccer. If you add all the games in the versions listed below, i would have played some 10000+ games scoring some 30000+ goals.
One best thing that reminds me about this game was again the fight between me and Baju in hostel. We used to play this in against mode and when say i score a goal, i'll sarcastically mock him heavily and i'l get the same treatment when he scores one. The audience used to be Kalaharan, Karate Prabhu, Jp, Kariyan.
And i cannot forget Jp scoring a cheeky goal in Fifa 2006 over network in final year hostel.



FIFA 2000


FIFA 2002


FIFA 2003


FIFA 2004


FIFA 2005



FIFA 2006


FIFA 2007

And sadly, my last FIFA game would be FIFA 2007. I dont think my system will support these hi-fi games. Even if they do, i've lost my craze for them. :(. But man, i've played this game like thousands of hours especially during my pre final and final years in college and first year at verizon.

Freestyle games
I'd like to specially mention about these two games which i once was really crazy about. They were the GTA Vice City and San andreas. Its the gameplay. You are a thug who can roam around the city of Vice City/San Andreas and you get jobs from mafias and gundas like assasinating the president, successfully making a drug deal etc., These games were so cool.




GTA Vice City



GTA San Andreas

Strategy type games
One of the most addicted strategical type games that i've played for a long time was Age of Empires 2. Although the game is very simple, one need to strategically plan on building the city to battles. During our final year in college, this game was played for hours continuosly. Professional players in this game include Raja, Jack, Karate Prabhu, Kalaharan, Vicky Vignesh and Jp. I remember HariG getting wiped out in a network game within minutes due to the strategic play of Jp and Raja.
Besides AOE, i've played Lord of the Rings - The battle for middleEarth, Hidden and Dangerous, Caesar 3 and Red Alert.
Broken sword 3 was a game filled with puzzles. I was able to finish it with the help of walkthroughs from internet :). And about puzzle type games, Baju used to play a game called 'Urutu Vilayatu', where the objective of the game is to roll a device time and again and it will make go back and forth in time. Other than that, it did not serve anything. Yet, Baju was real crazy about that one. Till date, i dont know why!


Age of Empires 2 - The Age of Kings


Caesar 3


Hidden And Dangerous


Red Alert 2


Lord of the Rings - Battle For middle Earth


Broken Sword 3


Shooting
I was really ruthless when it comes to first person shooter especially during games like Call of Duty and Quake3. No one in hostel was really able to beat me in a terrain called 'Longest yard' in Quake3 Arena. Even in Call of duty, i was almost unbeatable when i was holding machine guns. Am not that good sniper. Sniping missions - Jp used to be the topper. We used to play individual games/team games.
Lots of my batch mates were addicts of this Call of Duty. Baju, Jp, Karate, Kari, Raja, Mamu, Andi, Shanmu, Palgun, Hari, Jack, Pravin, Maani, Delhi - all these guys transform themselves into soldiers while playing over LAN. Most of the project semester mornings were spent in this. Worst performers of this game were Shanmu, Mamu, Andi and Palgun though. Their stat read like Kills - 5, Killed - 30 :). They were like a treat in the game especially for guys like Jp who used to melee them from back! :)


Call of Duty


Medal of Honor


Quake 3 Arena


Unreal Tournament

Miscellaneous Games
Virtual Cop, Worms World Party come under the miscellaneous category. These games, i've played for hours. Especially Worms world party, the cute sound of worms. And i cant forget Karate Prabhu involving in the game mostly as a spectator with a maths note in his hand :P . He did like this for almost 1 1/2 years!. And the current game that i've been playing is Yahoo! chess.


Virtual Cop


Worms World Party


Yahoo! Chess

Hope you've played atleast a few of the games i did and recall your funny memories over em!!