Wednesday, August 31, 2005 | On this day:

DynamiX 2005 Respawned

OK, I & Rahul propose that DynamiX 2005 be held 1 week after Dussehra holidays. So that makes it somewhere in 2nd week of October. Sanchit says that he's fine with it. I want the opinions/problems of this date from you all.

Also, I want everyone to keep stocking computer quiz questions, and make as many crosswords as possible. Pay more attention to stockpiling quiz questions. We need a stack of atleast 200 questions or so for selecting the final block.
--------------------
NOTE: NO DISCUSSION ON ANYTHING ABOUT DYNAMIX EVENT DETAILS HERE! YOU CAN TALK ABOUT QUIZ QUESTIONS & SOURCES, BUT NOT ABOUT HOW QUIZ/CROSSWORD FITS INTO THE EVENT. PLEASE USE YOUR DISCREETION WHILE TALKING ABOUT DYNAMIX 2005.

!!! Post Yaar !!!

Somsubhro Chaudhuri
Roshan Shariff
Ankit Madan
Harsha a.k.a Deborah
Ben the great
TitanX
uma
The great GAMER
CyberAlien
Rachit Taneja

The names I have written above , are the names of the students who are not regular posters on this blog . And some of them are not at all posters at all (Sorry for the bad english). Seriously , I never ever have witnessed any participatation from some of these Dynamites since the day i joined this blog.
So I request all the above students to please help in keeping this blog alive . I shall be grateful to them .

Note to Shashank and Aayush : Please defend me .

Regards
(Siddharth Razdan)

Saturday, August 27, 2005 | On this day:

DynamiX Clan T Shirts

Front Side:


Back Side:



For those who don't know, "I am Root" is a UNIX inside joke. It means the Boss.

Thursday, August 25, 2005 | On this day:

Interesting piece

Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98> ********* see!
AzureDiamond> hunter2
AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98> *******
Cthon98> thats what I see
AzureDiamond> oh, really?
Cthon98> Absolutely
AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond> awesome!
AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

Pretty dumb heh?! ;-)

Google Talk (Beta)

Google Talk is a simple and free way to talk with and send instant messages to your friends.

Google Talk can be downloaded here.

PS: I suggest all the Dynamites download GTalk and add each other.

Saturday, August 20, 2005 | On this day:

National Puzzle Championship !

Click on the image below ...





Njoy !

-- Anshuman --

Thursday, August 18, 2005 | On this day:

Google Code Jam 2005




When: Registration opens July 25, 2005 at 9:00 AM EDT

Where: http://www.google.com/codejam05

What: Solve increasingly difficult algorithmic problems within a set time period

Who: Sponsored by Google, Powered by TopCoder

1st place finisher gets a moolah of $10,000.

Top 100 finalists will win an all-expense paid trip to the finals at Google headquarters in Mt. View, California, on September 23, 2005. See website for official contest rules and registration.

Google has serious problems. Like developing efficient implementations for large-scale mathematical problems. Or running our search algorithms on a graph of 3 billion nodes and 20 billion edges. Or harnessing the computational resources of many thousands of computers to solve large-scale problems. Want to help us solve them?

the MINET Quiz Qustionaire

Can anybody give me the qustionaire of the quiz prelims/finals at MINET? I just want to have a look at it

Tuesday, August 16, 2005 | On this day:

The Book of Mozilla

You should try this out. Go to http://www.mozilla.org/book. The three verses have a meaning, and to find them, right click and view the source of the page. Before each verse there are commented sections explaining the verse. Pretty nice. :-)

Sunday, August 14, 2005 | On this day:

Happy Independance Day!

A very Happy Independance Day to all the Dynamites. Long live DynamiX!

Friday, August 12, 2005 | On this day:

For students interested in programming

Hey !! This is a important piece of information who have any plans to go for any programming competition .
I have found a wonderful place on net i.e. http://www.topcoder.com which offers us great practice to polish our skills in programming(c++,java,vb,c#).I think everbody with some programming skills must at least once go to this site .
One more thing , there is also a programming competition of international scale namely "Google Code Jam" to be held in August .Registration is free , so why should we not give our names in that too .Last date to register is 19 th of August 2005 .
Best of luck to all.

DynamiX Wiki

Phew! After a lot of fighting around with MediaWiki, I managed to get a neat Wiki installed, and after spending lot of time getting a nice look too, I present:
http://www.ramjasrkp.com/dynamix/DXW/

This Wiki is, as the site says, is the collected Wiki of all the departments. Of course, the DynamiX-related matters can be discussed too, but essentially, each dept. begins with a separate page for itself, and then anyone can add information like Objectives, post updates about the activities, and list out the various events it has conducted + team members etc. This is like a place where all the departments maintain their site. For those ignorant about Wiki, it is a collaborative tool where any one in the world can edit the content of the site on-the-spot from the browser itself. This helps improve the overall quality of the content, and also helps bring in more information and less work per person. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) is a perfect eg. of a Wiki.. the world wrote that amazing encyclopaedia. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki to learn more about a Wiki.

Since I am a bit sleepy, I didn't implement the security features yet. Right now, anyone in the world can edit our Wikis, but I plan on putting a password that only we all know. We don't need external literature in our case.

Departments

OK, here are the proposed departments:
  • Programming
  • Web Designing
  • Quiz + Crossword
  • Gaming
  • GD
  • Digital Graphics
   The departments shall be like self-functioning segments, each dept shall concentrate on their field. It is possible to have one member in more than one dept. That is fine. The depts. shall coordinate their efforts when events like DynamiX etc pop up. The DynamiX core committee shall oversee all the depts. and the major actions of each dept is done after consulting the core group. I will say this again: There is no presidential/vice presidential post in this club. We have a core group of 6-8 people, of any class. They are the brain of the clan and should be skilled in some field.
   To encourage each dept to function, we will have a sort of half-yearly review of all the departments, and the dept with the most activities (measured in discreet numbers. Each event such as a workshop/competition is rated with numbers.. and the participation size also makes a difference) is declared the "Lords of the Code". I will publish a quantified system of points-distribution pretty soon. Activities may be like Workshops for students, competitions, tests, seminars, guest lectures etc. The competition is a friendly one, in a healthy sense. The idea is to improve the general performance inside the clan rather than create Blah vs Blah scenarios. Inside the depts, there will be one team-leader, who shall be the wise-old boy/girl in the respective field. Each dept shall submit a report of their activities on the blog or in writing to the DynamiX clan.
   If this is fine with you all, I will go ahead and begin discussions with Principal ma'am on Tuesday. Comments please.

Intel to announce shift in microprocessor technology

For the first time in five years, Intel Corp. will make a major change in the plumbing of its chips by switching to a new design that promises better performance and lower power consumption than today's Pentium 4.



The world's largest chip maker will announce the architecture this month at a conference in San Francisco, spokesman Bill Calder said Thursday. Chips based on the new architecture are expected to debut in the second half of 2006.

The technology will replace the Netburst architecture that appeared in late 2000 with the Pentium 4 and enabled a path to higher processing frequencies. At the time, Intel hoped that it could boost performance by ratcheting up the speed of the chips.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 | On this day:

DynamiX Clan Meeting

The recruits from the classes 10th, 11th, 12th were present (most of them, anyway). Members from 9th did not attand as they were busy in the Project Citizen workshop, or whatever it was.
Me and Rahul Seth discussed most of the points given by Shashank. We told them about how the previous DynamiX 2005 was organized. We told them about the various events we will be holding, and how last time, we (only a small number of students) organized the whole event, and though there were some screw-ups, we still made it a success. It turns out that none of the present recruits have ever been to any computer symposium. I have asked them to find about in their classes about those who have and bring them in the next meeting, as and when called.
We discussed the approach of making different departments in the clan, and told them briefly what each dpt. is supposed to do. Like, the Gaming Department should make sure that FragFest is held every year (I still don't know when those "5 days of FragFest" are going to finish). Many recruits were making queries about FF. The Programming dpt. will hold a Logic Test to identify programmers. This Logic Test will be for classes 8th - 11th.
I told them about the importance of H2G2. Most of them had never heard about "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy". We told them how many questions from that particular book come in various computer symposium Quiz, and that budding Quizzers should see the movie or read the book. The Quiz dpt. should persuade the school to get a copy of H2G2 Movie.
The rest will be discussed in the next meeting.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 | On this day:

India Competitions


OK, here's a site that is very original in concept, and is one that is supported by DynamiX. Its just started up, and our's is the first clan that it has approached. The deal is that it is the one-stop destination to find out all the computer competitions and symposiums across (presently) Delhi.. and later India. Obviously, it has to build up an information network, and its source is from the students. We're presently supporting the site, and I would request all the members of the clan to sign up there, and help the site by acting as information sources, and discussing there to keep the site alive during its initial stages. Once more clans join up (we're in discussions with others) the site'll be more active and alive. Please support this site, as its an innovative idea by a Student of Class X. But the site is very professional.

Here's the link:
IndiaCompetitions.com

MINET Crossword Prelims

Ankit Sud's has posted MINET's crossword prelims. Here's the link to it:
Crossword Prelims

I'll be editing this post to add links to the other papers as and when I get hold of them. Try this one out. This paper is quite easy. We (Me + Roshan) managed to get nearly 80% correct.

Monday, August 08, 2005 | On this day:

Of students & jobs..

Of students, here's the list of the new recruits we've had this academic session.
http://www.ramjasrkp.com/dynamix/recList.htm

Now we must get them to attend meetings and give them jobs, and classify them to the various departments.

We need to have specialized depts. which will be responsible for all activities in their field of work. E.g.: Programming dept shall be responsible for organizing logic-tests in the classes to harvest brains, shall create the question papers for DynamiX event, etc. The WebD dept. shall maintain the Ramjas + DynamiX site + maintain & update Dynamix Notes. And so on..

Essentially, the tasks before us are:
i) Organize DynamiX 2005
ii) Hold a logic test (written) for classes 8-11 to select budding programmers. We shall give them a solid foundation of programming & concepts quickly, and then teach them advanced stuff & algos.
iii) The Gaming dept shall then select the most talented gamers recognized due to FragFest and make them join the Gaming dept.
iv) The Quiz dept. shall try to convince the school to get a copy of H2G2 to the library, and shall conduct short written tests for all members of the Quiz dept. The tests will be like: The short test (of say 20 qns) is given to all members. The paper shall not be tailor-made, and its fine even if no one answers any anything. Then the people shall take the paper home, try to get info & read up on the questions & related stuff and in a few weeks time, there'll be another test, which shall contain exactly the same paper, so that they'll get to revise that, and another new paper. Same sequence follows as long as possible. We need to start training quizzers from junior classes, say 7th. Right now, we have membership from class 9 onwards. Obviously, next year the current 9th batch becomes senior, so we need to take a look at our 8th too.
v) Allot each member a project in his field of interest/expertize. The students have to select one themselves, and can ask a senior member to mentor him/her. All students have to do a project, and are supposed to submit it by the end of Sept. The projects form a very important basis on their selection for the higher levels.

These things shall be discussed in the next meeting, on Wednesday. I & Roshan & Som shall most probably not be present in that, or will be there for only a few minutes, so I want someone to take responsibility of telling the students this thing. The reason I posted the list of students is because all these students are to be contacted and asked to attend that meeting. Someone should chair that meeting. I will be absent tomorrow. Comments please.

Saturday, August 06, 2005 | On this day:

And yet another post..

And I think people who want to prepare for crosswords should try this one out. This is from ForceFest 2004, APJ SS. The source is Ankit Sud's blog (http://tikna.blogspot.com).

tikna.blogspot.com/2005/06/look-what-i-found-crossword-for-force.html

Interesting piece..

This is interesting.. the original members might be interested in check this out. Its about us:

http://www.educationinindia.net/html/mtu13-05-05.htm
http://www.educationinindia.net/html/2802_05.htm

Relating to the "What schools should have" workshop & the DynamiX event planning stuff respectively.

Never thought that it would be on the net.

MINET Results

I'm feeling pretty unhappy.. yet I have to post, so here it is:

Senior Quiz (WINNER)
  • Roshan Shariff

  • Shashank Shekhar

  • M. Harsha
Crossword (2nd Position)
  • Roshan Shariff

  • Shashank Shekhar
The quiz was very very close. There was a three-way tie-breaker between us, APJ SS, & DPS VK. Then we & DPS VK tied, and we won that..

We thought that it couldn't get closer than that. We were quite incorrect. The crossword was... damn! It was a tie between us & DPS VK again, but this time for 2nd place. APJ Noida won the crossword. So we and DPS VK had a tie-breaker.. actually 6 tie-breakers or so.. and each time it was another tie. The audience was laughing.. and ultimately they ran out of questions and clues, and wearily shared the second position between us and DPS VK.

The rest of the events were surprisingly very bad for us. I dunno what happened to us, we went down in programming! Its like the logic clicks, and you're in. We attempted two, got the logic very very fast, wrote the program, it worked for the sample inputs given in the paper, and they had this funny thing that they made a Gigantic, unmanageable integer array (121 x 121) in a DAT file, and for some reason, it failed to work for that. It wasn't efficiency problem, it wasn't any data limitation problem.. yet to figure out. We'll be putting up the questions soon.. Harsha has them. The other events to we crashed out from. Very bad day. I think we just managed 90 points as a team.. guess that DPS VK won the overall event. They've displaced us this time. Damn! This was me & my batch's last MINET. :-/

Friday, August 05, 2005 | On this day:

MINET Day 1

I must say that these guys have planned their event very well. It was conducted in a very ordered and neat manner, and the questions were quite nice, though we felt that the crossword was quite easy.

So Me & Roshan qualified in Crossword prelims getting nearly 20 questions correct. It was good that we made the change in the last minute.. we got in very throughly. Then Roshan, Me & Harsha of Team A qualified through the prelims in Quiz. The questions were nice. I personally feel that the repetition of questions from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Book) is getting a bit too boring. As a reference for budding quizzers in DynamiX, the most common questions that come in all quiz events from H2G2 are:

a) What is the name of the creature you push down your ear to be able to understand all the spoken languages of the Galaxy? Ans: Babelfish
b) What is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, Universe & Everything? Ans: 42 (This question is the most common one)
c) Which computer produced "42" as the answer to Life, Universe & Everything? Ans: Deep Thought
d) What was the name of the computer that was built by Deep Thought to find the ultimate question of which the answer was "42"? Ans: Earth

These are the major ones I remember. I recommend that all the budding quizzers read H2G2 & watch "Pirates of the Silicon Valley" movie.

Back to the event, our Junior Quiz team was unsuccessful in their first attempt at quizzing. Our Quiz team B was a mess, with loads of replacements, with Benjamin being the only original member. Understandably, they crashed out too.

Tomorrow is Senior Quiz Final, Programming, Gaming, Web D, GD, Digital Imaging. In all these, we stand a very good chance to win. C'mon! We can win this championship & defend the Title. We're the defending champions this year.

The students who are going tomorrow:
Shashank Shekhar, Roshan Shariff, Ayush Gupta, Somsubhro, Sanchit, Uma, Harsha.

Gaming goes on all day. All reach by 9:30 AM. The people who are leaving from the school HAVE TO PUSH the teacher In-Charge into going early and reaching on time. It was terrible the way you guys reached late. Me & Roshan are going directly. Let us Win this one!

Thursday, August 04, 2005 | On this day:

MINET 2005 [Updated List]

Date: 5th & 6th August, 2005
Time: 5th - Stuff starts at 11:30 am I think; 6th - Forgotten! (please correct me)
OK so the final team that's being sent tomorrow/day after to MINET 2005, Mother's International is:

Programming:

  • Roshan Shariff
  • Shashank Shekhar
Senior Quiz:
Team 1:

  • Roshan Shariff
  • Shashank Shekhar
  • M. Harsha
Team 2:

  • Benjamin Cherin
  • Ankit Bhalla
  • Ayush Gupta
Junior Quiz:
Team 1:

  • Prashanth
  • Stefan Matthew
  • Shakti Mehra
Gaming:

  • Somsubhro
  • Sanchit Gulati
Crossword:

  • Shashank Shekhar
  • Roshan Shariff
Digital Imaging:

  • Ayush Gupta
Group Discussion:

  • Uma Damle
Web Designing:

  • Ayush Gupta
If there are any errors or missing events, please comment. I wrote this entire list out of my mind without any event list or anything. I don't understand why no one cares to create a website there? Their events are pretty cool, so it just doesn't match up.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005 | On this day:

Spry & Mighty!

From http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

In the beginning, there was one button. Then there were two. Then there were clickable scroll wheels and programmable toggles and solid-state slides. But nobody made a mouse as easy to use as your Mac. Until now. Mighty Mouse combines the capability of a multibutton mouse with Apple’s signature top-shell design for the best of both form and function. Use it any way you work: Stick with single-button simplicity or click with multibutton efficiency.
-----------------------
Hey this seems cool. I sure want to get my hands on one. :-P Pity its only for Mac OS X Tiger.

Monday, August 01, 2005 | On this day:

Controversial Website. Updated.

The DynamiX Clan Website has been updated with a new Header and the Navigation (included).
The site can be found here.