at&t comes through!

Filed under: technology — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on October 20, 2009 at 12:10 am

I thought it was only fair to give AT&T U-Verse its due after bashing it so much. My U-Verse connection was installed last Thursday by a very polite guy who hit his time range (10am sharp on a 9-11 am range) and left in about an hour. This minimized the amount of time I had to take off of work, which was great. The end result was the parking of a massive device known as a “gateway” which supposedly decodes the VDSL signal into TV and internet. Speaking of internet, my bandwidth got doubled to 12mbps for the same price so that’s fairly awesome.

TV is good! The DVR service is cool in that I can remotely schedule it from a web browser/iPod Touch App. So in case I have forgotten to set the DVR to record a show, I can fix that problem fairly easily. One gripe I do have, and one that is not local to AT&T, is the whole scenario of sports blackouts. I had my first encounter with them when I tried to watch a Rockets preseason game on FSSW. I get the channel, but the Rockets game is blacked out here in Austin. Supposedly because the Spurs are our “home” team. Couldn’t choose a worse home team if I had picked one blindly–I despise the Spurs.

Anyways, with no league pass available on U-Verse and the Rockets sucking enough to only have something like 6 games broadcast nationally (and all of those on NBATV meaning I can’t watch it anyway), it looks like I’ll have to follow the Rockets via the good old online live stream. At least with a 12mbps downlink I shouldn’t have any buffering problems!

I suppose that’s it for now. I should’ve been asleep a while back but my college habits haven’t faded away yet.

blast from the past

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , — sohum on July 27, 2009 at 4:07 am

I was looking through the desktop and my backed up files today, looking at all the literary content I had generated in high school. This reminded me of my college application process, and I gleefully began reading the essays I had written. This essay, titled “The Bathroom”, was unequivocally my favourite one. It was written for Harvey Mudd College and (surprisingly) my application was accepted. Enjoy!

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The Bathroom

There are two places where my mind is idle and completely open to ideas—in the bed while I am dreaming and in the bathroom while I am…doing the obvious. The latter does require some state of non-constipation to ensure that my mental energy is being used somewhat efficiently. It is an unfortunate by-product of life that one cannot remember dreams for a long enough time to record them—but with a pen and some paper, miracles can occur in (or on) a toilet. Anyhow, let me progress with the evidence for my shifty argument, lest I waste too many of my precious words on this introduction.

As I have mentioned above, if I can successfully channel my mental energies into areas of creativity, in the bathroom of course, great things can happen. When in a toilet, there is nothing much to grab my attention and thus my mind begins to wander. Ideas begin to formulate, develop and disappear and for a second it seems that I am but day-dreaming. How can I capture my ingenious thoughts? This is when the writing stationary and my consciousness comes in—I can now record my ideas and make sense of them afterwards!

I can interact with my thoughts in a way that was previously impossible—I can tinker with them and put them into proper words. What sets bathroom free-write apart from the post-write of dreams is the fact that the writer is already awake and ready to write. There is no risk of forgetting ideas or running out of time with them (unless you are in a particular hurry) and as a result, there is a progression of sorts. It is important to remember, however, that one must not force the development of ideas whilst actually in a bathroom. Everything must drop into place naturally.

Apart from being a great place to communicate with my brain, the bathroom is also an exemplary demonstration of the great human skill of multi-tasking. One can cleanse bodily systems and get work done—at the very same time! This is especially true if you are an unorganized worker, procrastinator or just a person with dirty habits. I, of course, am none of the three; I am a enlightened person who understands the true potential of a bathroom. It is almost derogatory to call such a mentally stimulating place a restroom—it is a place where the mind is extremely active.

Before I climb out, soaking, of this essay on a seemingly disastrous subject, I would like to helpfully point out my tasteful choice of subject and of course my honesty in the execution of this essay. I am sure this essay was…different, and I am hoping that that was for positive reasons. I sincerely do hope that this essay provides me with an opportunity to exhibit my creativity, my superb skills in writing and of course my modesty.