Y! Platform Engg Team Outing - May 19, 2006

The eagerly awaited team outing for Platform Engineering team finally made headway as we started at 6.30 am from MG Road office for Wonder Valley, Bangalore. Wonder Valley is about 25 Kms from Bangalore, in the backdrops of Bannerghatta National Park. The facilitating company for the day was OZONE India.
The team for the day comprised Swamy, Swaroop, Badi, Varun, Senthil, Hemang, Dorai, Nikhil, Srinidhi, Rohit, Girija, Praveen and me, all set to have a blast.

On our arrival, we were treated to a sumptuous breakfast in a hut like enclave. The majestic Eucalyptus, Silk Cotton, Silver Oaks trees provided a charismatic view with the criss-cross of sun rays trying to make its mark on the ground. Ravi ( from team OZONE ) was to be our co-ordinator for the day which he promised to be nothing short of being exhilirating.

The warm-up session began with some stupid exercises, fun games and formation of wierd circles - like the chicken soup circle. We played structure games in which we needed to enact an Elephant, a Giraffe or a rabbit with the adjacent person on either side of the performer required to form the missing legs and ears, appropriate to the animal being enacted. Confusion ensued and sometimes rabbit got Elephant's ears and elephant got giraffe legs - leading to a laughter riot.
In the end, this little session energized us for the tougher activities of the day.

It was time for some group activity and the stage was set to apply brains and power in the Dynamic Obstacle Course - a short course on ground defined in 3 stages, that involved crossing or negotiating through fixed obstacles successfully, as an entire team. The two teams ( Me, Praveen, Swamy, Varun, Nikhil, Srinidhi, Rohit Vs Swaroop, Badi, Senthil, Hemang, Girija, Dorai ) started at the opposite ends. We were given some resourses ( ropes, bamboo etc ) and a baby ( a container half filled with water - quite a heavy baby to carry ). Each team needed to get to the other end without setting a foot on the ground and transporting the baby unharmed ;-).
We started at the easier end and pushed ourselves fast to the 2nd stage while Swaroop's team still negotiated the first. But our strategy was soon proved wrong as fast movers Swaroop and Dorai quickly made it into the second stage and we needed to negotiate with them as we got stuck on high grounds getting out of which required mutual co-operation. The two teams helped each other getting through the innovative bamboo track six feet above the ground. It was a dangerous path and one wrong foot meant restarting the stage.Leaping and swinging in full flow, both the teams advanced to the 3rd stage but the easier course for the other team proved disastrous for us and we lost by seconds. Still, we knew the ground reality as to who the real innovators were :D ! Lime water was served quenching our thirst as we felt a bit dehydrated.

The next task on hand was to save the world of nuclear bombs planted all around the world with triggers located in a house of Death. The triggers ( 30 of them ) were to be diffused ( tapped ) in chronological order inside 50 seconds. Each team had just 3 chances after which the triggers would set and the the whole world would be destroyed. Nikhil's team started first and they messed it up pretty fast, while we found it hard finding the numbers and could manage only 15 triggers in the first attempt. Second chance ( 40 seconds ) also saw both teams faltering and making silly goof-ups. Third and the last chance ( 30 seconds ) - Nikhil's team went in first and managed to tap all 30 triggers, but they took more than a minute. Now the onus of saving the universe from perishing lay in our hands and we did not disappoint the world. It was an act of co-ordination and determined concentration ( hats off to our team ).

After a courteous lunch around 2, we played some volley before the much anticipated Wall Climbing stunts. The artificial structure looked huge and the knuckles seemed not too deep to give a solid footing. Six levels to the summit, the hike looked improbable. But no amount of difficulty could dampen our spirits as one after the other valiant attempts were made. Some made no more than one level up while Rohit and Srinidhi could touch the third level. At its most primitive, climbing is a “neuro-muscular” activity and each attempt left our fingers more numb and our bodies more consumed. Swamy did a morale boosting climb to the second level for the teams dying spirits and Varun gave a false (read funny) pose of clutching the knuckles and ascending the wall.

After more fun games in the form of untanglings and knee-walks, the highlight activity of the day was finally at hand. In Raft building each group had the task of constructing or building a floating device with the resources provided to them, such that it can carry 5-6 people on it in water at any given time. It was a test of creativity for both the teams as the rough interface (skeleton) of the raft was designed. We (me, Senthil, Rohit, Hemang, Girija, Badi) went in for early aggression and tried to make the raft as simple and durable with minimum resources. While Senthil started blowing up the floaters, we tied the ropes with deft imagineering. It took us no more than 30 minutes to launch our alpha version into the pacific ocean which we needed to cross. The raft looked fragile and once Hemang went on top, it sunk from his end. The alpha version failed, but thats how we learn from mistakes. Varun's team (Varun, Swaroop, Srinidhi, Nikhil, Dorai, Swamy, Praveen) was still fiddling around with bamboo sticks and ropes. They were so scared of high waters that they required 6 floaters and also a 6-6 bamboo configuration as opposed to our simple 4-6 one.

Nonetheless, we quickly fixed the bug and the beta version sustained a rough test course. But one of the floaters soon gave in to extra pressure from Hemang and this required emergency rescue operations for the boat. This time we had to be sure, no more loopholes would be tolerated and we were ready to go racing. The other team could manage to get their raft ready only after half an hour. In a real race scenario, they had already lost. The other raft looked more sturdy and had more manpower to manoeuvre the course. It was neck to neck as both the teams touched the opposite bank. We turned first and looked comfortable but Varun's team had already mastered the art of rowing and they soon started to catch up. More gallant efforts led to catastrophic results as the floater on Hemang's side could no longer hold on. Half submerged and crippled, we did not give up and continued rafting braving the high tides with renewed vigour. Their was a sense of urgency and though we lost by inches Hemang was the first to get back to the starting point - swimming all the way back from the point where the raft had broken in mid sea.

We laid to rest the carcasses of the raft and attacked the other raft for some photo session and a ride to the open waters. We sailed to a far distance and mused over the sunset. With the life jackets on, most of us dived into the lake water. Praveen, Swaroop, me, Girija, Srinidhi, Badi and Ravi ( our guide ) were part of this exciting journey in which we swam to our hearts content. All fears of water had gone as everyone displayed their swimming stunts from freestyle to backstroke.Me, Nikhil and Swaroop swam while the rest rowed back in the raft. It was a damn tiresome exercise and most of us were almost weared out.

After a light shower, we bid goodbye to Ravi and team OZONE for the amazing day and headed back home with Badi, Nikhil and Varun providing good humour about the days proceedings and mini fights as to which team was best. In all, it was a heart pulsating trip and a lot better than boring resort outings where you do no more than laze around or play the usual games like TT or pool. The outing brought us together as a team and there were plenty of lessons to be learnt from.
Definitely worth a try !
`Enjoii !

PS: Snaps uploaded here.

TIME TRAVELLING ! - Can you go back in time and kill your own grandfather ?

This is one topic which has fascinated me immensely ever since I read the supplement KnowHow in the wednesday edition of THE TELEGRAPH. Time travel has been a much debated and talked about concept and it feels good to put some glyphs together in front of you.

Lets say you have a time-machine. You send a pool-ball through it, with a speed and angle such that it goes a few seconds, perhaps not even seconds, into the past, hit itself, thereby changing the course of it "old" self. What will happen?

Answer: It will hit its "old" self, but not so much that it will prevent itself from going through the time-machine. And why is that? Because when it comes to timetravels, the present is not, as it normally is, just dependent of the past. It is also dependent of the future. That gives, if the ball HAS hit the time-machine, that fact cannot be altered by the ball itself. Because the ball would have to have hit the time-machine to change that fact. And if it already has hit it, that cannot be redone. That is also why you cannot go back in time to kill your own mother before you were born. But that's explained further down.

What if the ball was sent in one direction, between the time-machine and the place where it would appear after it had traveled through time? This situation is drawn here.

Here are two possible answers. 1st: It would be hit by its "old" self, thereby changing course so that it would hit the time-machine and go back in time to hit itself in the present. 2nd: It could go straight forward, and not be hit by itself.
It's kinda like the quantum-mechanics. The theory of quantum-mechanics says that there is a certain PROBABILITY for where the electrons around the protons of an atom are. You cannot know for sure where the electrons are. The same with the ball. You cannot know for sure which of the situations 1st of 2nd will happen before you can measure it. And, frankly, it's at present impossible to make such a time-machine.

Though in theory, it is possible to make time-machines, due to Einsteins Theory of Relativity.

How to make a Time-Machine
Assume you know exactly the locations of a worm-hole's two entrances. Then you place a very heavy, large mass at the one end of it. According to Einstein, time goes slower the more mass is present. That means that on one side of the worm-hole, the time will go slower than on the other side. When you have reached the time difference you wish, you remove the heavy mass, and travel through the worm-hole from the other side. Now you have gone back in time. When you have accomplished your mission in the past, you can go the other way, and you're back in the present. But don't try to kill your own grandfather.

Well, in fact, you could try just that. You take a gun, seek your grandfather(before he'd had a chance to produce babies, put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. You wouldn't succeed. This is kind of the same problem as with the pool-ball. Since you are alive, you cannot kill him, because then you would never be born, and never be able to go back in time to kill him. Again we see that when traveling through time, future as much as the past have influence over the present. Since you were born, your grandfather cannot be killed. Something would have to go wrong. You live, thereby so does your grandfather.

It would be a great way to eradicate all people you don't like though. Go back in time, kill their parents before the ones you don't like are born, and they won't exist in the present. Since you was not born at the time, you wouldn't be held responsible if you got back to your own time again.

Then an interesting problem arise. What if you change your mind? Could you go back to kill yourself before you killed the parent? Let's see. You would be able to kill the parent in the first place. Then that already would have happened in the present. If you shoot yourself in the past, you would not be able to go to the past to shoot yourself. That is out of the question. Not possible. But what if you tried to convince yourself about not killing the parent? You would know it was possible to travel through time. So you would perhaps believe yourself when you said you came from the future. And perhaps you would listen, perhaps not. I cannot see any reasons why it shouldn't be possible to convince yourself otherwise. Can you?

But one thing you cannot do is meet yourself as you were back then. Well, you could. But then you would know that in the future you would have to go back to visit yourself in the past. And since you haven't met yourself yet, you know that you won't be traveling back in time in the future to see yourself being born or anything. If you would like to do that...[-_^]

How far can you go?
How far backward is it possible to go? That actually, is kind of tricky. You actually couldn't go back further than until the first time-machine were made. Because: To make a time-machine, you would have to put a large mass at the one end of a worm-hole. Then time would go slower there. But it would not go backward. Perhaps you could put such a great mass there that it would stop time. But if you did that the 1st of June 2006, that would always be the date of that side of the wormhole. So you wouldn't be able to go back further than 1st of June 2006. Too bad, eh?

But how far forward is it possible to go. Again, you place the mass, and go through back in time to the 1st of June 2006. Time there isn't changing. (Just how that would feel, I'm not certain of, but never mind that here.) You stay there for a period that on the other side of the wormhole is of length 20 days, then you go back. You would have traveled 20 days into the future. That OK. But what if you stayed on the other side of the wormhole for about 20 billion years. If the universe are widening forever, that would perhaps not be a problem. You would be sent 20 billion years forward in time. Well, earth wouldn't be anymore, because in about 5 billion years the sun will envelope earth when dying. But perhaps you could find another place to live. But if the universe are imploding again after 15 billion years, then what would happen? You would suddenly be out of the space-time-dimension. Is that possible? I don't know. Perhaps this is a way to travel out of our universe. Then again, if the universe is no more, the wormhole wouldn't exist either, and you wouldn't be able to go forward again. Perhaps you would just vanish. Who knows?