A lot like rant...

So I was watching TV this evening, which is not entirely unlike any other evening because if I am home I am mostly sitting in front of the idiot box. I have noticed that this is something most normal people frown upon. It gives me the feeling that most people believe that one must be a good-for-nothing, unimaginative, artless bloke if you can get entertained by something that is playing on TV. But what about indignation? Is it ok if instead of being entertained I am, what is the word I am thinking of here... something along the lines of indignated? I have a friend who frowns upon the fact that whenever I am in a room I don't turn up the lights so that the luminosity matches that of a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon. Err.. why a Sunday afternoon? What do you mean? Why not Saturday, Monday... or any other day of the week? Heck, why not just a bright, sunny afternoon? Good question. But I digress... so I ask him/her (all identities are protected in this blog... Oh! Who am I kidding, of course, you know it is a girl... You are stereotyping! Well, it makes the rant more provoking. You were supposed to do that with radical ideas. I am running low on radical ideas right now.

Once again, I digress... so I ask her, "Now why would I need bright lighting when all I am doing is watching television? Isn't it a good thing that I turn off unnecessary lights and save power and do my bit towards protecting the environment?" And she replies, "If you want to save power turn off that idiot box." Now what sort of a suggestion is that? Aside from the fact that the power consumed in lighting the room to a luminosity of a bright, sunny afternoon, see it doesn't have the same ring to it as a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, is much more than that consumed by the TV, but more importantly... sure I take her suggestion and turn off the idiot box... and then what? Stare at the room which is as bright as a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon? Yes, I could read... but show me a Japanese or a French book with English subtitles so that I can read and assimilate thoughts and ideas from different cultures. Until you can do that, shut up about my TV viewing habits.

Oy! Looks like I ended up ranting about something completely different than what I set out to rant about. This evening I was watching TV as usual... there was this movie Pleasantville playing on, I think, TBS and they had promos for a new release "A lot like love" during the commerical breaks. So like they had this you know like an interview with the stars or something and I was like oh my god she is so hot and that is so cute and all that... (err... sorry wrong character, I am being myself here) and it had me wondering. The plot, from their discussion, seemed non-existent. All they could talk about is how much fun they had on the set and how the hero/heroine is such a wonderful person and how they became fast friends over the making of the movie. How is that relevant? When did the fun they had on the sets become a barometer of the quality of the plot and how much fun I, as a potential movie watcher, will have? By the same yardstick, the videos I shot during my trip to the Grand Canyon must win the best picture at the Oscars, that is how much fun we had during that trip. Yes siree bob!

Beware of the leopard

In anticipation of the exciting event unveiling next week, I have taken to greeting everyone with phrases like "Hey frood! How are you?" And let me tell you, it hasn't been going very well. The reaction I have been getting so far, which I firmly believe is not the proper response to that question, which in case if you are wondering is "I can never get the hang of Tuesdays. So how are you hoopy Florist?" --- as an aside you get extra points if you can work in the word sass in the previous sentence, is a very eloquent "Uh?"

Which, of course, makes me wonder... am I hanging out with the right crowd? Probably not. Anyway, to those still wondering, I am talking about the release of the Hitchhikers movie. The reviews have been mixed so far which is understandable... the guide isn't popular for its accuracy and so the different versions (text, radio shows, tv shows and the movie) are bound to be different to keep with the spirit of the Guide. However, I found myself cringing when I saw a snippet from the movie - the sperm whale incident. I think the trouble was that I remembered the sentences in the book and when the dialogues in the movie didn't match the ones in my brain there was a certain degree of uncomfortableness. So in case you are planning to review the text before going out to see the movie, like you did for LOTR, my suggestion is, Don't!

So long and have a nice day, while I sit back and wonder what it was that the bowl of petunias were thinking when they said, "Oh no! Not again." I wonder if they were working for a professor.

Proof of research...

Your credibility as a researcher or your worthiness as a potential employee after your doctorate is basically measured in terms of the number of publications you can list in your resume. But veterans of research life and here I am talking about the ultimate authority, the PhDcomics has time and again illustrated how you can beat the system using illustrative examples. But so far it has always been mind against mind... your capability of generating esoteric technical jargon against your fellow researchers. However, it seems that it is no longer the case... the joke go away, or I will replace you with a shell script, it seems, has indeed become a reality! A computer generated conference paper has been recently accepted in a certain conference. Does this mean that graduate students are now obsolete? More importantly does this mean that I will have to graduate soon? Should we be forming unions and demanding that the technology be banned because it will result in unemployment of so many graduate students? Or should we just be keeping our advisors in the dark and use these to generate papers and boost our conference publication list?

The research dilemma...

Let me begin this post by offering no kind of apology to my loyal readers (all the two of them) for ignoring this space over the last two months (almost). I am also not going to give any reasons (read: none that I can think of right now). Oh wait, this one just came to my mind, I blame Dave Barry. He was not only funny but also was born earlier than me and got an unfair head start in the business of writing humor columns. I wanted to write about crowded mall parking lots, but he was there before me. I wanted to conjure up funny names for rock bands, but he was there before me. I wanted to write about exploding toilets... no, actually not.

But gentle readers don't you worry, you haven't missed anything. I am still in the PhD world with graduation still a distant dream. And while I am sitting in my room, almost freezing to death, I cannot help but wonder about this wonderful dilemma I have with research. Ummm... looks a bit anachronistic, it is spring already. You cannot be possibly freezing in spring. Ah! That! Didn't I ever tell you? Tell me what? That my room follows the weather patterns of Australia? Ooookay... Will I regret it if I ask you to explain yourself? Yeah, my room follows the weather patterns of Australia. See, Australia is in the southern hemisphere, so when it is springtime in northern hemisphere it is autumn in Australia and vice versa. I know Australia is in southern hemisphere and all that. Why (or should it be how) is your room following the weather patterns of Australia? I think my room thinks that it is in Australia. It even says mate in Australian accent. I know it is stupid and impossible, but I am more curious now. Are you theorizing some sort of space-time curvature and some wormhole contraption wherein your room is somehow mysteriously located in the outskirts of Perth? What? No! Nothing of that sort. I was just saying that the stupid designers who designed the heating system in my apartment were either permanently brain damaged or were drunk. They put the heater/air conditioning unit in the kitchen, and then ran one pipe over a distance of over 30 feet with vents opening out in each room at roughly 10 ft. Now, my room being the closest to the unit gets the hottest/coldest air depending on the northern hemisphere weather patterns... I mean hot air during winter and cold air during summer, I know it is confusing. In that sense it seems to follow the weather patterns of Australia. Ha ha ha... space-time curvature and wormholes... where do you come up with such things... can you not think of a simple explanation? Someone needs to cut down on their daily sci-fi TV dosage. Sigh! I knew I would regret it. Who would have thought there would be some rational explanation when it comes to you?

But my research dilemma does involve some of the quantum theory aspects. I think my research is more like schodinger's cat, or may be not, I am not entirely sure. Phew! I was getting worried for a moment there. So you are still crazy and all is normal with the world. I am sorry but I have this feeling of relief sweeping over me. Oh what was it that you were saying? Anyway, I was saying... my research it is like Schodinger's cat... or rather my code is... or rather the bugs in my code are... that is assuming they exist, which they might not. Either they exist or they do not exist. I won't know of the existence of these bugs/errors/modeling inconsistencies in the code unless I run a test case or actually peruse the code i.e., make an observation. But then if I do not make an observation then the bug might not actually exist or its nonexistence might be superimposed over its existence. The appearance of the bug might be due to the very fact that I chose to look for it? I mean there must the possibility of "a bug free research code run by me" being played out in one of the several parallel universes. And as long as I choose not to observe it... it might as well be this universe. So I have chosen not to look/work on my code. While this has allowed me to relax like never before, it has an unfortunate side effect of filling my inbox with irate emails from my advisor about some lack of progress. What lack of progress? How can we no there is no progress unless we make an observation? But my advisor is not much into relativity so...

Come here, let me give you a hug. I am so glad that you are "normal." I am not sure now, you are watching way too much of soap operas if you ask me. Eewwww.. I hate human contact.