Sauvik Biswas

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Becoming an accidental cook - 10 tips from someone who has been there, done that I call the likes of me accidental cooks. When I moved out of college, I had no idea how to cook a proper meal. In due time, with some help from my friends and mom, I managed to scrape together edible concussions on my plate. Here are my tips to help you survive the ordeal. Please consider the fact that this is true to a guy who wants to thrive on Indian cuisine. Biking in Bangalore: What to look for when buying and operating a new cycle. Some of my friends are either switching to cycle as their primary mode of transport (while most of them are busy looking for cars!). I often see people as being clueless to the whole notion. They usually have a budget and they want to buy something that would help them commute to their workplace and back. As a result they post an innocent looking question on Facebook - “I have a budget of so-and-so. I want to buy a new cycle. Please give me some advice”. I can assure you that most of them have a preconceived notion of what they are buying / targeting even before they ask for opinion. Due to this buyer’s bias, they often don’t judge the pros and cons of the scenario they are about to enter. Cleaning my Workstation In a process to declutter my physical space, I have chalked out a few things. Today I spent about an hour to turn this to this (you can still see the junk at the lower left corner). The workstation contained a lot of items that I haven’t used in a year. The primary one was a Creative 2.1 speaker system that was superseded by the Yamaha monitors. I have packed it and placed it on a storage shelf. There was a mess of tangled cables. Most of them were disconnected! All I had to do was remove them. The longer cables are now anchored via hooks on the wall. At least I can pull my table away and clean the floor now. There were a few things that acted as interfaces and breakouts for recording devices. I have disconnected them. Since I haven’t used them in a long time, I thought I would connect them as and when required. Textual automation in a simulation industry The following piece of writing originally appeared on my earlier blog. I have been observing people lately who do similar work as mine. The core engineering group is highly dependent on simulation of physical problems. All of it is to essentially de-risk actual physical events or worse, to evaluate the root cause of a real world problem. Well, one of the key causes of such kind of work in India can be attributed to the lack of manufacturing units. Our engineering education, no matter how rigorous it may be, on one hand addresses the curriculum from a purely theoretical standpoint, while on the other hand helps create brilliant analysts who can actually shine through jobs that require simulation on a computer. It doesn’t mean that the person is incapable of real world engineering. It’s just that he has very less opportunities here. 10 Anime for a Beginner I was a latecomer to the world of anime (anime : animated work originated in Japan, regardless of the artistic style). I had earlier watched a lot of animation movies and cartoon series by the time I was 20 but for some reason the whole Japanese culture of anime and manga had alluded me until I was in my early 20s. This list is targeted towards an adult viewer. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t entries that were primarily aimed towards children. Also, it doesn’t imply that all of these titles are top of the line (though many are). These are listed here purely from the point of view of a person who hasn’t been exposed to Japanese culture. Questioning the difference of programs in DNA and Android brain: Chobits A few week ago, I came across the image of some manga collector’s shelf. I saw one huge volume of Chobits. I was not aware of the series. I hadn’t even seen the TV anime. I wondered if the subsequent volumes were available. A quick search said that after the expiry of Tokyopop’s license, who released them in standard 200 page volumes, the manga was picked up by Dark Horse in 2010. Instead of publishing it in small volumes, they had decided to bind the entire work in two volumes of thick omnibus format. I had gone through the first few chapters via scanlations and found them interesting enough to order for a copy. A scientific error in Adi Parva On page 95 of the book, Amrutha Patil writes “Overall, the heart of an atom is positively charged. Orbiting it are negatively charged particles - or are they serpent-like waves? - which outnumber the positive particles by far.” In truth, for a neutral atom, they are exactly the same. I hope the publisher corrects this mistake in subsequent editions. Non Non Biyori: Slice of life doesn't get better than this Non Non Biyori is one of the best slice-of-life anime I have ever come across. This little gem that aired last fall did not get as much attention as it deserves. Well, maybe in its home country but not outside. The summary on the Crunchyroll page is very very deceptive. It is hard to write an appealing summary for a show like this. If I say that the show is about four girls spending some quality leisurely time and goofing around in a remote Japanese village, I doubt it will encourage anyone to pick this show up for watching. Why it is Difficult to Collect Garfield Volumes. I have tried buying a lot of Garfield collections - mostly for my sister. I faced considerable difficulty in collecting the strips. This can be primarily attributed to the fact that these strips have been irregularly collected by various publishing companies. First off, we have those licensed by an Indian publisher, Euro Books. The back covers of their solo books clearly list out all the 24 titles available from them. Does Disney/Pixar Graphic Novels Match up to their Movies? Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles Quite some time ago, I came across these books - graphic novel adaptations of Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles. I am almost sure that Disney has released graphic novel adaptations of other movies (especially those by Pixar) but I am yet to come across them. The books have very unique looks to them. Monsters has a very classy artwork. The design of “Boo” has been considerably altered from the movie.