Monthly Archive for November, 2011

Torres Benched Again !

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago in Sports. 0 Comments
Drogba and Torres

Drogba and Torres

It’s been 4 matches now that Torres has had to wait for his turn. In fact, he has only played 51 minutes of the last 360. It’s so frustrating to watch him warm the bench. We could use his quality on the pitch than the dug out. He was so close to re-discovering his touch.

I do not speak for AVB, but here’s my take why Drogba has been starting ahead of Torres. This has coincided with the “difficult period” as perceived by everyone at the club. We are not playing like AVB wanted us to. He has come under a lot f strain recently to produce a string of victories. Talk of his getting the sack is rubbish, but knowing Abramovich, one cannot be sure. He needed someone on the pitch to help his case. So it makes sense to go with the big bullish character of Drogba than the silky smooth and stylish nature of Torres.

When Drogba plays you can just shoot a long ball to him and expect him to hold the play for others to catch up thus bypassing the midfield. And Drogba does that very well. This allows the troubled back line to clear the ball quickly and get it into the attacking half. Torres is not good at this. He loses out to long balls and when he tries to hold up play he is often dispossessed. He’s better at having the ball played to him through the midfield in front of the goal – which Chelsea has had trouble with.

Do I believe that Drogba will always be preferred over Torres? No. Once we move on from this difficult times and put in a victory streak, I’ll expect AVB to shed all the negativity and revert back to his principle of stylish play in which Torres has a major part to play. Mata and Sturridge link up so well to create lots of chances. Throw Torres in and we’ll have an entertaining front for Chelsea.

Once again Drogba has shown that Chelsea needs him. He may be past his best but he’s still got the quality to pull us out of miserable times. It’s only me speculating and being optimistic here. I hope I am right. It’s such a shame that they can’t play together. They could have been the fearsome couple!

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Beginning To Like Rockstar Retrospectively

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago in Miscel. 0 Comments
Rockstar

Rockstar

We watched the movie a couple of weeks ago. Immediately after the movie I wasn’t at all impressed by it. I am not sure why. Perhaps it being the first show in the morning of a weekend, or just that I had very high expectation from the story line. The script was supposed to be a musical play, but my impression was that of a love story that dragged on and on for ever without any sense or purpose. Yes, occasionally the music was good and the rhythm kept you engaged. But overall we weren’t all that satisfied having spent 2 hours in the morning of a weekend.

But now, the more I think of it the more I appreciate the presentation. Ranbirs acting was definitely good. He portrayed the change of character of Jordan amazingly well. The metamorphosis of an innocent Janardhan into the arrogant Jordan was well scripted. The underlying theme of the movie was love – how it gives and takes away. Falling in love with a girl knowing that she’ll get married to another guy shapes up the character of our rebel Rockstar. He’s the real human – the madness, love, anger and yet a soul lost in music yearning for the company of just that one person.

The end of the movie immediately brings to mind the following verses from the American Idiot album by Green Day – Give Me Novacaine.

Take away the sensation inside
Bitter sweet migraine in my head
Its like a throbbing toothache of the mind
I can’t take this feeling anymore

Drain the pressure from the swelling,
This sensation’s overwhelming,
Give me a long kiss goodnight
and everything will be alright
Tell me that I won’t feel a thing
So give me Novacaine

The music is addictive. The melodious rhythms to go with Mohit Chauhans lyrics lend a magical touch to the whole experience. No complains on that front. I think the reason I did not really fall in love with the movie was because I do not connect easily with love stories. They seem too silly to me at times.

Would I want to live a life like Jordan? I don’t know. Impulsively I’ll just deny, but frankly, I do not really know the answer to that question. I just don’t know.

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Stanford University Online Education Courses

Published on 3 months ago in Miscel. 0 Comments

This morning Madhu sent out a mail regarding few courses that Stanford University are offering. The courses are free of cost and start late in January. The duration is around 8 weeks. They’re perfect for self motivated people who are just interested in learning something new. The medium of discourse is obviously video lectures. One is supposed to go through them in their leisure time. Of course, one is expected to put in incremental effort every week instead of just revising the whole thing in the last week. There might be additional quizzes and assignments to be done. Also a mini-project is also a possibility. The emphasis is on learning.

Of late – after leaving Kharagpur to be more precise – I’ve had this appetite to learn something new. So the moment I saw this opportunity, I enrolled myself in 5 courses. The first one being Machine Learning by Prof. Andrew Ng. Here’s the link to the course – http://jan2012.ml-class.org/.I’ve been through his video lectures posted in Youtube, the first of which can be found at http://youtu.be/UzxYlbK2c7E. I’m taking this course to refresh my machine learning concepts. I expect this to be one of the better courses.

Another one I got myself enrolled into is the Game Theory course. Here is the link to the page - http://www.game-theory-class.org/. Everyne who has watched the movie – A Beautiful Mind – will agree to have been fascinated by the game theory concept. Shenoy and I tried to learn more about this by doing a mini-project in our third year, but I wouldn’t count that as a successful experience. Hopefully, this time the experience will be better.

The third course to interest me was the Cryptgraphy - http://www.crypto-class.org/. Once again, we had this in our third year but I never took it seriously enough even though the topic had always interested me. Lucky for me, my brother is doing a course in Cryptography this semester. So I’ll have someone close to talk to clear any specific doubts. There’s always the course forum otherwise.

The fourth one is Probabilistic Graphical Models - http://www.pgm-class.org/. The desire to take up the course arouse from the fact that it’ll be mathematically involved. Also I think the knowledge of models can supplement my Machine Learning fundamentals.

Lastly, I also got myself enrolled for the Natural Language Processing course - http://www.nlp-class.org/. Now this’ll be something entirely new – something I have absolutely no idea of. That is the exact reason why I want to study this subject. During my four years of engineering, I never picked up this course, but finally I have the chance to learn about this topic.

My expectation from the course is pretty simple – good lectures, good quizzes and assignments and a mini-project in each. At present I’m quite excited about getting started and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll definitely find time to study the subjects the right way this time. I hope I can do that. My goal is to know these 5 topics more in depth by the end of April – yeah, I expect to continue even after the course is done.

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CL: Bayer Leverkusen vs Chelsea – Nov 2011

Published on 3 months ago in Sports. 0 Comments
Chelsea vs Bayer Leverkusen

Torres challenged by Bender

It’s the turn of ex-Chelsea midfielder and a proud ex-captain of Germany, Michael Ballack, to welcome us home. I have many fond memories of him dictating the mid field of my teams. In fact, the primary reason I became a Chelsea fan was the fact that Ballack was playing for them.

This is a crucial away tie for Chelsea in the Champions League. Our defense has been erroneous of late, we haven’t done well in the Premier League, which is why winning is all the more important today. Our morale needs the impetus that todays win can provide.

But for that, we must shed all the negativity and self doubts that has engulfed  us and play with a positive mindset. I think starting Torres is a must. Drogba is done and dusted. We need the enthusiasm and work rate of Torres to spur us forward. He needs to rediscover his clinical finishing to justify the price paid for him. But he cannot do this all alone by himself. He needs supporting.

That support must come from Mata, Sturridge and Ramires. Together, the four of them can work wonders. I have faith in my team. Sooner than later we’ll be ready to conquer the world.

Looking towards the future, I vote that Oriel Romeu start the game ahead of Mikel. He is a promising asset. Lastly, we hope the back 4 actually do their work today.

It’s not an easy game today. In Schurrle, Bender and Ballack, they have 3 amazing players. We need to be wary of their goal threat. Not to be taken lightly. And if we manage to emerge victorious, we’ll be sealing our progress to the round of 16 – alas, we should have done that in the last round itself.

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EPL: Chelsea vs Liverpool – Nov 2011 – Post Match

Published on 3 months ago in Sports. 0 Comments

I do not want the jump the bandwagon and ask for AVBs head. People need to realize that he’s perhaps the best thing that has happened to Chelsea for a long time now. He is working hard to transform once static team to a dynamic one. It’s the players who are failing him. The players should pull up their socks and start performing the way he wants them to.

The game was played in 2 phases – the first and the second halves. Weighed down by all the criticisms, the Chelsea team that came out in the first half played a very boring and defensive game. It was so against the way AVB desired us to play. Our defenders were passing the ball among themselves and Mikel to Cech. Why the heck does Mikel play is a totally another subject. We were slow and without any purpose. Liverpool on the other hand were bight and eager. The team selection told the way we would play – battering ram Drogba would try and muscle his way to the goal, supported by the slow Malouda. Mikel sat deep. Ramires and Mata had almost nothing to do in this game play.

Then with the second half things changed. Mikel was taken off for Sturridge. And we went for that aggressive play. Mata became the creator. I feel Drogba should have made way for Torres. Torres links up better with Mata and Sturridge. Torres being quick is more suited to the fast game play. Once again we were pressing higher up the pitch and actually trying to create chances. Having leveled with the Sturridge strike and then missed a golden opportunity – which was actually amazing keeping by Reina – it was a bit unfortunate to end the game without any points.

I wish that our team continues to play the way they did in the second half. Chelsea does not deserve to win the premier league title any more. We’ve already lost to Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. With that in mind, we should continue on the attacking philosophy of AVB and just try to become a better team. There’s still the Champions League to fight for, and we can fight for it in style.

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Google Inserting Ads In Maps Interface

Published on 3 months ago in Miscel. 0 Comments

I only noticed it today! Now when you click around at objects in the Google Maps, you might just see an advertisement inserted in the popover. Here’s a screenshot. The description for Kyra Power Dining & Theatre has an ad from justeat.in.

googleMapAd

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EPL: Chelsea vs Liverpool – Nov 2011

Published on 3 months ago in Sports. 0 Comments

It’s weekend! It’s the EPL weekend! It’s the Chelsea vs Liverpool weekend!

This is a changed Chelsea from the time we lost 0-1 to Liverpool in Feb – which was Torres’s first match. Now Torres is rediscovering some of his form, we have Meireles, Mata and Sturridge. Also Ramires run and run and runs and runs and runs and, oh well, runs. The big danger though would be Suarez. That guy is on fire – scoring 4 goals in Uruguays friendly game. He poses serious threat to our leaking backline.

I do not expect Chelsea to keep a clean sheet in this one. But I’m confident we’ll win the game. I would love Torres and Sturridge to get on the score sheet. Torres owes us fans at least this much for supporting him all through and through.

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Chelsea Stats Page

Published on 3 months ago in Sports. 0 Comments

I’ve  made my Chelsea Stats Spreadsheet public for anyone to view. The same has been shared as a page on this blog site. Following are the links if you are interested:

Link to the shared page on blog: http://blog.singhanuvrat.com/chelsea-stats

Link to the public view of spreadsheet: Docs Public View

I update the sheet manually after every match as soon as the information become available.

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Kill A Process Running On A Particular Port In Windows

Published on 3 months ago in Tech. 0 Comments

This has become a very common scenario for me these days. I have my grails application running on localhost:8080 and at times I need to manually kill the process. I am writing down the steps so that I know where to look it up quickly.

  • List the processes running on ports
    • netstat -a -o -n
  • Find the one you need. I search for 0.0.0.0:8080 and get the PID.
    • taskkill /F /PID <pid>

Task complete!

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TGIOF : Jumping To The Tunes Of Poets Of The Fall

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago in Miscel. 0 Comments

Past weekend Poets Of The Fall rocked Bangalore. A band that I had so grown fond of finally made their second visit to India after 4 years. And since it was not much crowded, we were able to make our way to the fourth row pretty easily. And they played all the songs I knew and I knew very few. In my defense, it’s been long since I was last in the campus.

Desire was the one I really wanted to listen. And they played it in acoustic style – no drums, only guitar. It was wonderful. Then came Roses, Locking Up The Sun and Sorry Go ‘Round. We were jumping and dancing excitedly to the melodious tunes always aware that the best were yet to come. And those were the last three – Late Goodbye, Carnival Of Rust and Lift – in that particular order.

We were all tired and exhausted after those 90 minutes – neck pain and sore throat proof enough that we had a great night.

Here’s a video I shot using my Galaxy S2 camera. Sounds mostly noise though.

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