Categories
Personal Reflections

gyaan.in meetup #1

When gyaan.in was launched around two months ago, one of the points in our charter was to hold ‘offline’ meets in which quizzers could interact and get to know each other in real life, beyond the environs of cut-throat competition. We, the gyaan.in team, haven’t forgotten that part and are now working towards making gyaan.in meetups a reality.

The response that gyaan.in has got within the past two months has been, to put it simply, amazing. I am overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that the quizzing community has shown towards this (and I mean that in a good way!). So I would, on behalf of the gyaan.in team, like to thank every member of the gyaan.in community – moderators, forum members, regular and casual visitors – for making this possible.

We plan to hold the first gyaan.in meetup at Connaught Place on Saturday, 19th September 2009. We had a tough time adjusting the event day/timing so that it did not clash with any school exams (many schools have their mid-term exams going on right now). In the end we felt that 19th Sept was a good compromise. No coaching institute has scheduled diagnostic tests around this time because of school exams, so that’s one issue solved. It’s a ‘long’ weekend since 21st September is a holiday (Idu’l Fitr); that way, even if you have exams on 22nd of September you will be able to take a few hours off on Saturday. And in case you have an exam on that Saturday, we’re scheduling the event in the evening so that you can still make it. Here are the details:

Date: 19th September 2009
Venue: Costa Coffee, Connaught Place (Outer Circle)
Time: 5pm to 7pm
gyaan.in meetup #1 on Upcoming

Costa Coffee is close to the Nirula’s outlet in the Outer Circle. There’s apparently a pretty popular dhaba called Kake Da Dhaba right across the road in case you need to ask someone for directions. (An auto-wallah will probably recognize that as a landmark rather than Costa Coffee). In case you need directions or have any other queries, please leave a comment here or call me (Ankur Banerjee) at 9871604101.

Agenda

There is no agenda for the meetup as such. We’re initially modelling this along the lines of ‘tweetups’ – meetups where people who know each other on Twitter can meet and get know each other, or catch up with people they already know in real life. So basically this event is for socialising with other Delhi-based quizzers (but if you’re dropping in from some other city, you’re more than welcome!). You don’t have to be a gyaan.in forum member to attend – anyone and everyone’s invited. So you can drop in any time between 5-7pm because there’s no strict ‘schedule’.

Once again, I request you to register for the meetup at Upcoming. Of course, you can still drop-in without registering too. 🙂

About gyaan.in

gyaan.in is a newly-launched quizzing forum started by a few Delhi-based quizzers, with the intention of promoting school quizzing in Delhi, holding meetups so that quizzers (not just schools quizzers) get to know each other in real life, and quizzing not for points but for the sheer joy of knowledge. We have an official(-looking) charter too. To find out more about us, visit gyaan.in for daily question of the day threads, quiz archives, notification about upcoming quizzes, and random chit-chat.

Categories
Technology

‘New and improved’

I went to the optician today to get my eyes checked. Yes, I prefer an automated refractometer (or whatever that thingymajig is called) test done rather than stumble blindly around for one whole day because of those dilatory eyedrops given by ophthalmologists when testing. I got that done only once – when I first got spectacles – and then never again.

I’ve been using Essilor‘s Crizal lenses for quite some time now. Nah, I wasn’t swayed by images of people giving Colgate smiles after wearing those. What I did find interesting was that my optician said that the lenses are ‘scratch-free, dust-free’ and whole bunch of other ‘frees’ (except for the price-tag, which is nowhere near free). But hey, it works. I was happy with is since it really is what all they said.

New and improved is an oxymoronic term (if it’s ‘new’, it can’t have been ‘improved’; if its ‘improved’ then it can’t be ‘new’) often abused by the likes of Cadbury Bournvita marketing executives. So when today I need to choose new lenses (power increased by .5 dioptres), I was very curious when the optician told me that now they had the new and improved Crizal A2 lenses.

Now since Crizal lenses are already (supposedly) ‘scratch-free, dust-free’, what more am I to expect from my Crizal A2 lenses which I ordered? Probably a laser tracking system that shoots down dust particles mid-air. Or maybe the previous one was merely scratch-free, while this one can be used to cut upon bank vaults. Crizal’s India site gives a few clues.

"You can become Superman simply by buying our lenses!"
"You can become Superman simply by buying our lenses!"

If I don’t ge X-ray vision enhancement (I assume that’s what it means) with these new lenses instead of just vision correction, I’m taking them to court. 😀

I’ll slip in something sideways here. I went to the British Council library yesterday to return some books. I was browsing through the shelves to find something new to issue, when I came across this:

iPod and iTunes for Dummies
iPod and iTunes...for *real* Dummies

Steve Jobs will probably have a heart attack if he comes across this book. If you need a fricking manual, scratch that, a fricking for Dummies book to operate an iPod / iTunes then it’s a probably a good indication that either technology is way too complex or that the preson reading the book is from Jajau. Lest you accuse me of Photoshopping the image, check out iPod & iTunes for Dummies at Amazon.com

Speaking of spectacle lenses, it isn’t as if I’ve not tried to switch to contact lenses. Bausch & Lomb allows you to try on their contacts, so I gave it a shot once. A sales assistant is assigned to help you put on the contacts for the first time. Try all I might I just can’t keep my eyes open when the contacts come close to my eye. The sales assistant tried many many times, but each time my eyes started blinking so rapidly that the contacts couldn’t even come close. Half an hour or so later, one sales assistant was trying to hold down my upper eyelid open, a second one was trying to keep my lower eyelid open, while yet another tried to put the contacts on – and failed miserably. I found out that day my eyelid muscles were stronger than hand muscles of grown men and women.

Seems like I won’t be wearing contacts without a whole entourage of people to hold open my eyelids.

PS – One of the artsy-fartsy types found out what a Mission Impossible 3 type start is called; the term I was referring to is ‘in media res‘.