I am beginning to get this feeling that the powers that be are trying to tell me something, something regarding my work. And I think the message is, although a bit obscure and probably entirely my imagination but everything seems to, at least in my interpretation, point to it, that I should stop coming to work. Now does it want to say work from home, or even the drastic quit altogether and just give up? I don't know.
So far this week, I've been locked out of my office on two days (as you'd already know from my last post). And yesterday, the metro train that I was in traveling to work suddenly lost all power and came to a standstill. The only lights that were on were near the emergency exits. I was contemplating the possibility that all aboard might have to get out and walk along the tunnel to the next station, when somehow the power was restored and the train moved along without further incidents. I guess that is nature's way of telling, I told you to stay out of the office, but you were too stupid to take the hint. So now I'm having to mess with the metro and inconvenience everyone else on board too. Are you happy now?
Surely, I should have been able to put two and two together. The last one month has been quite disappointing at work. The codes have gotten extremely fussy about running, let alone generating results that would appease the funding agencies and produce more funds and grants. Nature is saying, Look buddy, I'm just helping you out here.
But it seems that I still didn't get the hint. For today, there I was back again traveling to work. However, because of various reasons I'd to end up driving to work. Now anyone who has lived where I live and commuted to where I work would tell you, it ain't no picnic even on the best of the bright, sunny, lazy laidback sunday mornings when most of the populace is attending mass at their local churches. But I was driving to work at the peak rush hour, and what's worse, it is raining cats and dogs. I don't know what it is with rains and people crawling down to 10mph on the highway. But it is just the fact of life and I've learnt to live with it.
So while I was crawling along the interstate at snail's pace, I was surfing through the radio channels and got to hear some offbeat news which you don't usually hear everyday. According to the DJ the links are available at their website Hot 99.5 FM, but I am unable to find them.
Now I know many of you will say that listening to commerical radio is stupid, and that only news on NPR or some such is worth listening to. To those people, I say "pfft", I don't care. What follows is what I remember listening, so it might not be entirely accurate, be warned. Among them...
Fight over chicken dance: Apparently some place in Australia a few guys kept requesting the chicken dance song and kept doing the chicken dance on the floor repeatedly. This annoyed the bouncers so much that they manhandled the guys and threw them out of the joint and a fight broke out where one of the bouncers injured his opponent seriously. Well, I didn't like bouncers because they were huge and strong and can pummel a scrawny guy like me to death. But damn, they've got taste and I really side with them on this. Anyone doing the chicken dance deserves to be hit hard over his/her head.
Drunk kids: Underage kids were caught drinking by one of the kids' parents. A few of the kids held others hostage with a sledgehammer. The police were there trying to get them out, but gave up and left after a few hours at around 4AM. Apparently the kids eventually gave up and left at around 6AM. I seem to have forgotten a lot of details in this story. I remember there were more hilarious bits to this, but I was busy negotiating traffic and trying to swerve to avoid rear-ending someone who jumped in front of me.
Raccoon skinning in Arkansas: This one takes the cake in to my opinion. There was a planned skinning demonstration of a raccoon in a school. And the parent of the kid surprised the teacher by bringing a live animal in a trap instead of a dead one. Apparently, the teacher didn't have anything to kill the raccoon with before skinning it, so he used a nail gun to kill the animal before proceeding to skin it in front of the kids. Apparently only one of the kids in the whole class opted to sit out and not watch the proceedings. The AP article has some more details.
Now one of the DJs (No. 1) was wondering about how it is considered not so outlandish an occurrence in Alabama, but might be considered quite out of the ordinary here in north-eastern US. He opined that the teacher might be under a lot of heat for doing something like that. Of course, none of the DJs thought that a wild animal would even be allowed in school premises in these states. However, another DJ (No. 2, a woman) said that there were hunting and fishing clubs for kids in high school in certain states, and trapping, skinning and eating animals was essential knowledge that is taught to kids in some places. So to most people in those places, as probably in Alabama, it is just nothing more than a science project where you dissect an animal to learn about its internal organs.
So DJ No. 1 said that the teacher should be shot with a nail gun for using a nail gun on a raccoon in front of the kids. Then DJ No. 2 asked if DJ No. 1 would be OK with the whole skinning of the raccoon in front of the kids, if the teacher hadn't used a nail gun to kill the raccoon. He didn't think the whole skinning of the raccoon in school in front of the kids was acceptable either.
I am not sure what my feelings are on this issue. Yeah, the nail gun is a bit bizarre, but would you be OK if there was no nail gun involved? It would then just be a normal dissection class?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
When it rains, it pours
And I'm not even talking about the rains that we're subjected to in this parts of the country for the last few days. Now was it two or three? I forget. My memory is degrading faster than my weight, but I'll get to that later.
So this is going to be a rant against my working conditions. And if you're allergic to rants, then I suggest you stop reading right now, I am not longer responsible for you dying of a brain hemorrhage. You've been warned.
To provide you with some background. I am a postdoc at a university in a department which shall be unnamed. Now the life of a postdoc isn't any better than the life of a PhD student. You get the same dingy cubicle, a desk, a very uncomfortable chair, and piles and piles of old printouts mysteriously end up cluttering your desk no matter how hard you try to keep it clean. And if you're lucky, the heating/cooling system will actually maintain a comfortable atmosphere in your cubicle. However, that almost never happens. What happens instead is that the vent directly above you blows hot air in summer and cold air in winter. They don't trust you with the thermostat settings because you don't have the requisite number of brain cells to set temperature on a thermostat. You're, however, expected to research on how helicopters fly. Now these cubicles often a dozen to room with the roominess of a VW bug, are often guarded by a strong door with graduate students often having electronic card access, or if you're really unlucky still managed by keys which you can get only after a three-month wait period... during which period you're at the mercy of your peers.
In my particular case, we're in the postdoc office. While dingier and more ancient looking than the graduate students' office, it does provide a sub-office (numbered XXXX-A, XXXX-B and so on) for each postdoc. There is, however, a catch. Isn't there always a catch. No one has keys to these sub-office doors. Everyone leaves their sub-office doors open and just hopes that the main door (numbered XXXX in our example) is secure enough to keep nosey types at bay. Things went on fine where everyone just left the door alone until this Monday. I show up at work and I find the door to my office locked and I'm without a key. I go up to the department office and apparently they don't have the master key either. So I was asked to track down a senior professor who happened to have the master key, so that I could gain access to my own office.
To make sure that this doesn't happen again, I diligently used duct tape to prevent the locks from locking and hoped that this would sort the problem. So imagine my surprise when I walk in today and find the duct tape removed and the door locked again. This time the senior professor was nowhere to be found. The people at the department office washed their hands off of any responsibility and refused to help me. So after a good two hours of running around I was able to find a person who was able to open my room.
Once I gain access to my office, I'm craving a cup of coffee. So I start brewing coffee, and as fate would have it, my coffee machine decides to have an abortion. The coffee grounds block the small opening that drips the coffee down into the cup and the water from the reservoir overflows in the filter and makes a mess of my desk. I manage to clean my desk, my coffee machine and salvage about a quarter cup of coffee from that ordeal.
I guess this is nature's way of saying, "you should've stayed home and not bothered to show up to work".
So this is going to be a rant against my working conditions. And if you're allergic to rants, then I suggest you stop reading right now, I am not longer responsible for you dying of a brain hemorrhage. You've been warned.
To provide you with some background. I am a postdoc at a university in a department which shall be unnamed. Now the life of a postdoc isn't any better than the life of a PhD student. You get the same dingy cubicle, a desk, a very uncomfortable chair, and piles and piles of old printouts mysteriously end up cluttering your desk no matter how hard you try to keep it clean. And if you're lucky, the heating/cooling system will actually maintain a comfortable atmosphere in your cubicle. However, that almost never happens. What happens instead is that the vent directly above you blows hot air in summer and cold air in winter. They don't trust you with the thermostat settings because you don't have the requisite number of brain cells to set temperature on a thermostat. You're, however, expected to research on how helicopters fly. Now these cubicles often a dozen to room with the roominess of a VW bug, are often guarded by a strong door with graduate students often having electronic card access, or if you're really unlucky still managed by keys which you can get only after a three-month wait period... during which period you're at the mercy of your peers.
In my particular case, we're in the postdoc office. While dingier and more ancient looking than the graduate students' office, it does provide a sub-office (numbered XXXX-A, XXXX-B and so on) for each postdoc. There is, however, a catch. Isn't there always a catch. No one has keys to these sub-office doors. Everyone leaves their sub-office doors open and just hopes that the main door (numbered XXXX in our example) is secure enough to keep nosey types at bay. Things went on fine where everyone just left the door alone until this Monday. I show up at work and I find the door to my office locked and I'm without a key. I go up to the department office and apparently they don't have the master key either. So I was asked to track down a senior professor who happened to have the master key, so that I could gain access to my own office.
To make sure that this doesn't happen again, I diligently used duct tape to prevent the locks from locking and hoped that this would sort the problem. So imagine my surprise when I walk in today and find the duct tape removed and the door locked again. This time the senior professor was nowhere to be found. The people at the department office washed their hands off of any responsibility and refused to help me. So after a good two hours of running around I was able to find a person who was able to open my room.
Once I gain access to my office, I'm craving a cup of coffee. So I start brewing coffee, and as fate would have it, my coffee machine decides to have an abortion. The coffee grounds block the small opening that drips the coffee down into the cup and the water from the reservoir overflows in the filter and makes a mess of my desk. I manage to clean my desk, my coffee machine and salvage about a quarter cup of coffee from that ordeal.
I guess this is nature's way of saying, "you should've stayed home and not bothered to show up to work".
Friday, June 01, 2007
(defclass lolcode (programming-language lolcats) ... )
The latest phenomenon that has taken the internet world by storm is lolcats. OK, I exaggerate. It isn't really that new, the first reports came in around April, 2007 and has been reported on various net culture watch-blogs. But with the pace at which my blog gets updated, this is new enough. Yet another sore reminder of how I'm completely oblivious of the hip-culture on the net. I always considered myself net-savvy and up-to-date on the latest craze and fads, but I guess I'm getting too old for that. I first saw it on Language Log and have been seeing a lot of examples recently, because my wife loves looking at those cat macros.
Of course, to preserve the guy image, I've to profess my utmost disgust at this silly fawning over cute cat images, despite the fact that the captions are quite clever and require quite a bit of imagination. So why am I blogging about this?
Well, a recent post at Language Log indicates that out of the lolcats phenomenon has emerged a new programming language lolcode which uses the lolcats slang for its control constructs. I'm neurotic about learning new programming languages and cannot sleep with the knowledge that there is a programming language out there in which I cannot write a simple "Hello World" program. Thus, encountering languages like Whitespace and Brainfuck previously. So I headed out to the lolcode website to see if there were any tutorials and interpreters for the new programming language. Turns out they're still arguing about syntax for the control constructs. The discussion is quite funny, especially the ones for if-then-else conditional and for-loops. You guys might want to check it out.
And thanks to Wikipedia, now I've found an entirely new list of programming languages that I've never heard of! Look at the Categories section at the end of the wikipedia link for Whitespace or Brainfuck. There is a programming language based on Klingon. Neat huh?
Of course, to preserve the guy image, I've to profess my utmost disgust at this silly fawning over cute cat images, despite the fact that the captions are quite clever and require quite a bit of imagination. So why am I blogging about this?
Well, a recent post at Language Log indicates that out of the lolcats phenomenon has emerged a new programming language lolcode which uses the lolcats slang for its control constructs. I'm neurotic about learning new programming languages and cannot sleep with the knowledge that there is a programming language out there in which I cannot write a simple "Hello World" program. Thus, encountering languages like Whitespace and Brainfuck previously. So I headed out to the lolcode website to see if there were any tutorials and interpreters for the new programming language. Turns out they're still arguing about syntax for the control constructs. The discussion is quite funny, especially the ones for if-then-else conditional and for-loops. You guys might want to check it out.
And thanks to Wikipedia, now I've found an entirely new list of programming languages that I've never heard of! Look at the Categories section at the end of the wikipedia link for Whitespace or Brainfuck. There is a programming language based on Klingon. Neat huh?
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Luddite in me/us
Recently, my wife was telling me about how the senior staff at her workplace were quite wary of dealing with electronic equipment, how they'd panic if the printer or the photocopier had a paper-jam, or how they were quite uncomfortable about the prospect of handling a certain task using M$ Office Excel spreadsheet than using tables in M$ Office Word.
Aside:
*Shudder* Tables in Word! Why don't people just strap themselves to an electric chair, and have a sadist pull out each tooth in your mouth with a pair of pliers without anesthesia, while being electrocuted simultaneously? I wager it will be less painful than dealing with the formatting of the tables.
Anyway, coming back to the topic, we got talking about technology and technophobia and one of us (I don't remember which)...
Aside: This is a diplomatic maneuver usually employed by husbands when they aren't sure what stance their wives would take, and don't want to annoy them.
Anyway, back to the topic...
... and one of us (I don't remember which) ended up wondering how we might be considered Luddites when we grow old and cannot keep pace with the technological changes around us.
Does getting older impact ones ability to grok fancy new technology? Or will we be as sharp as we're today with the advent of new technology? Why do people lag behind, assuming that at one point they were up-to-date with the day's latest technical gizmos? Is it because, after a certain stage, we get comfortable with the tools we've because they seem to do all the things we want to do? Or is it because with age, we slowly lose the curiosity and don't want to pursue the latest fad of the day?
At that point, I was feeling mildly confident that no matter what happens I'd definitely stay abreast of the technological advances, and never appear clumsy using the latest technologies. However, a few days ago, I'd to use text-messaging on my cellphone/mobile/or-what-you-will and I realized that I might be wrong.
I dislike text-messaging, partially because I feel it is clumsy having to type out the letters using the numerical pad. Of course, i cud ve rittn smth lik this, but I'm over that phase. I like to feel smug after having typed out the text in proper English. And typing out words properly using the normal text entry mode is painful. Hip people would point out that I should be using T9/iTap for text entry. I tried it once when I first got my cellphone, couldn't figure it out and so never tried text messaging ever since.
However, a few days ago, I went back to it and it seemed so straightforward and simple that I feel quite stupid to have avoided it for all these years. I must say it is quite nifty! I guess the words I was trying to type weren't too complicated, and so it was easy for the algorithm to guess at the words I was trying to type.
So I'm mildly consoled by the fact that even though I gave up T9/iTap a few years ago, I was able to learn it a few days ago. I guess to fully get rid of the stupid feeling, I probably must learn Morse code, type my text-messages in Morse, and figure out a way to have them automagically be translated into English text before it is sent out. Well, what can I say... I belong to the weird group of people who think like this.
P.S. Just to annoy my wife-y: ये मेरा दिल यार का दीवाना| ;)
Aside:
*Shudder* Tables in Word! Why don't people just strap themselves to an electric chair, and have a sadist pull out each tooth in your mouth with a pair of pliers without anesthesia, while being electrocuted simultaneously? I wager it will be less painful than dealing with the formatting of the tables.
Anyway, coming back to the topic, we got talking about technology and technophobia and one of us (I don't remember which)...
Aside: This is a diplomatic maneuver usually employed by husbands when they aren't sure what stance their wives would take, and don't want to annoy them.
Anyway, back to the topic...
... and one of us (I don't remember which) ended up wondering how we might be considered Luddites when we grow old and cannot keep pace with the technological changes around us.
Does getting older impact ones ability to grok fancy new technology? Or will we be as sharp as we're today with the advent of new technology? Why do people lag behind, assuming that at one point they were up-to-date with the day's latest technical gizmos? Is it because, after a certain stage, we get comfortable with the tools we've because they seem to do all the things we want to do? Or is it because with age, we slowly lose the curiosity and don't want to pursue the latest fad of the day?
At that point, I was feeling mildly confident that no matter what happens I'd definitely stay abreast of the technological advances, and never appear clumsy using the latest technologies. However, a few days ago, I'd to use text-messaging on my cellphone/mobile/or-what-you-will and I realized that I might be wrong.
I dislike text-messaging, partially because I feel it is clumsy having to type out the letters using the numerical pad. Of course, i cud ve rittn smth lik this, but I'm over that phase. I like to feel smug after having typed out the text in proper English. And typing out words properly using the normal text entry mode is painful. Hip people would point out that I should be using T9/iTap for text entry. I tried it once when I first got my cellphone, couldn't figure it out and so never tried text messaging ever since.
However, a few days ago, I went back to it and it seemed so straightforward and simple that I feel quite stupid to have avoided it for all these years. I must say it is quite nifty! I guess the words I was trying to type weren't too complicated, and so it was easy for the algorithm to guess at the words I was trying to type.
So I'm mildly consoled by the fact that even though I gave up T9/iTap a few years ago, I was able to learn it a few days ago. I guess to fully get rid of the stupid feeling, I probably must learn Morse code, type my text-messages in Morse, and figure out a way to have them automagically be translated into English text before it is sent out. Well, what can I say... I belong to the weird group of people who think like this.
P.S. Just to annoy my wife-y: ये मेरा दिल यार का दीवाना| ;)
Blogging goes desi (देसी)
At the risk of annoying two-thirds of my readership, here goes a blog about Hindi, written in Hindi.
आज का ताजा खबर! अब आप हिंदी में ब्लोग कर सकते हो| अधिक जानकारी के लिए इस लिंक पर देखिए|
For those wearing the Babel Fish in their ears, you'll read this as (hmmm... I don't know how reading works! May be the eggs that Babel Fish lays swims in your aqueous/vitreous humour, and renders them correctly?): Breaking news! Now you can blog in Hindi. For more details, follow this link. (I'm too lazy to paste the links here again, you can click on the links in the Hindi text. Not sure which is which is which, then it would just like shooting in the dark, wouldn't it?)
I must say that this "transliteration" thing works pretty well. Because I'm not using a Hindi keyboard, or using the Hindi character map to generate these. All I did was type "Aaj ka taaza khabar" and it converted it on-the-fly (at the end of every word) to its Hindi equivalent.
P.S. I guess this means that I can write things like हाल कैसा है जनाब का? क्या ख़याल है आपका... and Kate will just have to learn Hindi fast enough and make sense out of it. ;)
To spoof livejournal
Current mood: Impressed
Current fad: think about more blogs to post in hindi
आज का ताजा खबर! अब आप हिंदी में ब्लोग कर सकते हो| अधिक जानकारी के लिए इस लिंक पर देखिए|
For those wearing the Babel Fish in their ears, you'll read this as (hmmm... I don't know how reading works! May be the eggs that Babel Fish lays swims in your aqueous/vitreous humour, and renders them correctly?): Breaking news! Now you can blog in Hindi. For more details, follow this link. (I'm too lazy to paste the links here again, you can click on the links in the Hindi text. Not sure which is which is which, then it would just like shooting in the dark, wouldn't it?)
I must say that this "transliteration" thing works pretty well. Because I'm not using a Hindi keyboard, or using the Hindi character map to generate these. All I did was type "Aaj ka taaza khabar" and it converted it on-the-fly (at the end of every word) to its Hindi equivalent.
P.S. I guess this means that I can write things like हाल कैसा है जनाब का? क्या ख़याल है आपका... and Kate will just have to learn Hindi fast enough and make sense out of it. ;)
To spoof livejournal
Current mood: Impressed
Current fad: think about more blogs to post in hindi
Monday, April 02, 2007
The abstraction layer
This one is for all those die-hard bachelors, or those computer geeks who just cannot understand the concept of marriage.
While discussing things, more like arguing about things just for the sake of arguing (mostly because it ends up with her trying to shut me up with a kiss), with my beloved, I came upon this unique computer-analogy of describing marriage, more importantly the wife aspect of marriage as it is relevant to a man. This, of course, assumes that you've got a well-tested, stable version of the software/operating system for things to work as smoothly as it is described here. Instead if you get the Windoze of the marriage world, then you'll be fixing BSOD's for the rest of your married life, which, if you are lucky, will not last long.
<Aside> Yeah, this might sound like those endless forwards we receive everyday via the wonderful World-Wide-Web about upgrading Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 2.0. So fine, you know about that. I'm just explaining the inner workings of Wife, when Wife works. (Oooh... an unintended pun... you'll see what I mean soon enough!)</Aside>
It all started when we were talking about a certain friend's newly found boyfriend's sensitive side, especially his knowledge of dryer settings.
<Aside>
I've had the good fortune of not having to look at the different settings on my washer/dryer ever since we moved into this new house, even though the washer/dryer is right beside the kitchen, where I cook on most weekends, and sometimes during weekdays. My wife, and previously my girlfriend, is obsessive about cleaning; and so I let her do it, because she claims it makes her happy, but mostly because I'm too lazy. I mildly suspect that she feels slightly superior to be able to do this task better than I can, which I'm not admitting to in any way, but I am more than happy not to challenge, mostly because I have no interest in doing the task myself, as much as it might be a blow to my ego to let someone go on with life thinking that they are superior to me. Of course, we are equals in marriage... so we don't have any ego problems. *grin*
My wife believes that as a man I would never be able to comprehend the concept of fabrics, the wash-cycle, the washer/dryer controls - a typical gender stereotype that somehow seems to make women feel better than men. Much like the other gender stereotype which I've been subjected to a lot recently, mainly because of my recent wedding and my upcoming reception: the wedding is mostly a bride's affair and men, especially the groom, are dolts who cannot even be trusted with a decision which requires just the IQ of a mollusc. While, my bride has been extremely patient with me, this is a stereotype I've been subjected to many a time in that annoying show on TV called Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? And I absolutely detest this show. Ooops... I guess this is the point where I accidentally confirm the stereotype and then like God in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, promptly vanish in a puff of smoke.
I still maintain that doing laundry isn't such a difficult thing. Sure there are controls and settings on the washer/dryer, and if I'd to do it, it might take me a couple of seconds the first time round to decide on the settings. But the thing is, I can figure it out by a process of logical deduction, and it wouldn't require me to have a female brain (refer to the a great linguistic blog called the Language Log to amuse yourself while they try and debunk the notion of difference in male vs. female brain). It is no different from giving me a VCR and a remove that I've never seen before and asking me to set the time on the machine. Five minutes later, I'd have set the time and also discovered an obscure feature that you never knew existed in your VCR.
</Aside>
Phew! That was a long aside. So naturally the issue of washer/dryer sparked the old debate of how I'd never have to worry about doing laundry again. And then my wife quipped, "Surely you'd want to know the processes involved." And then I realized, "No, I don't have to." The wife is the perfect abstraction layer. All I need to know is that if I've a good loving wife, then the clothes I throw in the laundry basket at the end of the day will somehow in a week's time, end up neatly folded on the shelves in the closet or on hangers as they should be. It is sort of like the knowledge that you need a TV to watch programmes. You don't need to actually know how the TV decodes signal into a picture-sound combination on the screen & speakers, you just need to know how to work the remote, even there, mostly the big red power button.
Of course, you'd get some idea of the internal processes involved by looking at the components lying around in your house, seemingly serving no useful purpose, but invariably generating some hideous noise when you are trying to watch your favorite TV show, which must somehow be the underlying hardware of this wife abstraction layer. For example, the huge white hunks of metal lying in the corner of your house taking up valuable floor-space, called the washer and dryer. You might not understand it, but you have the good sense not to fiddle with it because you've seen your wife refer to these things as "My preciousss..." Or for that matter, you suddenly sense some disturbance in the wife abstraction layer (no, you don't need a Yoda-level understanding of the Force, you just need the survival instincts that Darwinian evolution has pre-installed in you), which can seemingly be only appeased by a $400 component called the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Much like the knowledge that to watch certain programming, you'll need a cable box, some additional cables, and a couple more remotes.
So all you need to learn is one interface, namely your wife and keeping her happy. And she will automatically find and install all the necessary components which will greatly enhance your life. Of course, some of those components cost, but believe me, the comforts that those things come with are totally worth it.
P.S. Luckily for me, my wife is very understanding, so I won't have to spend the rest of the week in the dog-house, assuming we'd one in our small apartment, for writing this. At least, I'm hoping so. *fingers crossed*
While discussing things, more like arguing about things just for the sake of arguing (mostly because it ends up with her trying to shut me up with a kiss), with my beloved, I came upon this unique computer-analogy of describing marriage, more importantly the wife aspect of marriage as it is relevant to a man. This, of course, assumes that you've got a well-tested, stable version of the software/operating system for things to work as smoothly as it is described here. Instead if you get the Windoze of the marriage world, then you'll be fixing BSOD's for the rest of your married life, which, if you are lucky, will not last long.
<Aside> Yeah, this might sound like those endless forwards we receive everyday via the wonderful World-Wide-Web about upgrading Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 2.0. So fine, you know about that. I'm just explaining the inner workings of Wife, when Wife works. (Oooh... an unintended pun... you'll see what I mean soon enough!)</Aside>
It all started when we were talking about a certain friend's newly found boyfriend's sensitive side, especially his knowledge of dryer settings.
<Aside>
I've had the good fortune of not having to look at the different settings on my washer/dryer ever since we moved into this new house, even though the washer/dryer is right beside the kitchen, where I cook on most weekends, and sometimes during weekdays. My wife, and previously my girlfriend, is obsessive about cleaning; and so I let her do it, because she claims it makes her happy, but mostly because I'm too lazy. I mildly suspect that she feels slightly superior to be able to do this task better than I can, which I'm not admitting to in any way, but I am more than happy not to challenge, mostly because I have no interest in doing the task myself, as much as it might be a blow to my ego to let someone go on with life thinking that they are superior to me. Of course, we are equals in marriage... so we don't have any ego problems. *grin*
My wife believes that as a man I would never be able to comprehend the concept of fabrics, the wash-cycle, the washer/dryer controls - a typical gender stereotype that somehow seems to make women feel better than men. Much like the other gender stereotype which I've been subjected to a lot recently, mainly because of my recent wedding and my upcoming reception: the wedding is mostly a bride's affair and men, especially the groom, are dolts who cannot even be trusted with a decision which requires just the IQ of a mollusc. While, my bride has been extremely patient with me, this is a stereotype I've been subjected to many a time in that annoying show on TV called Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? And I absolutely detest this show. Ooops... I guess this is the point where I accidentally confirm the stereotype and then like God in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, promptly vanish in a puff of smoke.
I still maintain that doing laundry isn't such a difficult thing. Sure there are controls and settings on the washer/dryer, and if I'd to do it, it might take me a couple of seconds the first time round to decide on the settings. But the thing is, I can figure it out by a process of logical deduction, and it wouldn't require me to have a female brain (refer to the a great linguistic blog called the Language Log to amuse yourself while they try and debunk the notion of difference in male vs. female brain). It is no different from giving me a VCR and a remove that I've never seen before and asking me to set the time on the machine. Five minutes later, I'd have set the time and also discovered an obscure feature that you never knew existed in your VCR.
</Aside>
Phew! That was a long aside. So naturally the issue of washer/dryer sparked the old debate of how I'd never have to worry about doing laundry again. And then my wife quipped, "Surely you'd want to know the processes involved." And then I realized, "No, I don't have to." The wife is the perfect abstraction layer. All I need to know is that if I've a good loving wife, then the clothes I throw in the laundry basket at the end of the day will somehow in a week's time, end up neatly folded on the shelves in the closet or on hangers as they should be. It is sort of like the knowledge that you need a TV to watch programmes. You don't need to actually know how the TV decodes signal into a picture-sound combination on the screen & speakers, you just need to know how to work the remote, even there, mostly the big red power button.
Of course, you'd get some idea of the internal processes involved by looking at the components lying around in your house, seemingly serving no useful purpose, but invariably generating some hideous noise when you are trying to watch your favorite TV show, which must somehow be the underlying hardware of this wife abstraction layer. For example, the huge white hunks of metal lying in the corner of your house taking up valuable floor-space, called the washer and dryer. You might not understand it, but you have the good sense not to fiddle with it because you've seen your wife refer to these things as "My preciousss..." Or for that matter, you suddenly sense some disturbance in the wife abstraction layer (no, you don't need a Yoda-level understanding of the Force, you just need the survival instincts that Darwinian evolution has pre-installed in you), which can seemingly be only appeased by a $400 component called the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Much like the knowledge that to watch certain programming, you'll need a cable box, some additional cables, and a couple more remotes.
So all you need to learn is one interface, namely your wife and keeping her happy. And she will automatically find and install all the necessary components which will greatly enhance your life. Of course, some of those components cost, but believe me, the comforts that those things come with are totally worth it.
P.S. Luckily for me, my wife is very understanding, so I won't have to spend the rest of the week in the dog-house, assuming we'd one in our small apartment, for writing this. At least, I'm hoping so. *fingers crossed*
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Absent minded professor
It is my good fortune that the acts of breathing and pumping blood are involuntary actions. For if they were deliberate actions, I would have had a long life spanning 30 minutes at the most.
The problem is that I cannot remember the most routine activities on a daily basis. For example, I've been wearing a wristwatch since the age of 13; and yet after 16 years, I still, oftentimes, forget to wear it when I head out to work in the mornings. My wife says, "Can you do while I go take a shower?" I do hear it, I do understand what she is saying,1 and, in fact, I would've responded in the affirmative, "Yes dear, I will take care of it."2
It is not like I've a poor memory. In fact, compared to many people, I come across as having an elephantine or photographic memory. I can remember snippets of very casual conversations (over Instant Messaging, that is the only kind of conversation I've been known to be capable of) from two years ago down to the last minute detail. I can remember roads and locations just by driving through it once. And yet I cannot remember to pay my electricity bill without a dozen reminders. I cannot remember to post the mail-in rebate offer until almost the deadline, regardless of the fact that I would've filled the form the day it arrived, attached the UPC code and put it in an envelope and sealed it. But it would sit there in my desk gathering dust because I would not have a stamp handy to mail it off right away. And pretty quickly, it would be buried under a pile of electronics like hard drives, video cards, memory chips, etc.3
Oh! Another good one: charging my cell phone battery. One would think that after 5 years of owning a cell phone, you'd get used to the mundane routine of putting it on the charger every night or so. But not me! You'd not believe the number of times someone tried to reach me and the phone was off because it was low on battery and they think that I'm deliberately avoiding their calls or screening calls.4
I started wondering about my inability to remember routine tasks on the long and boring metro ride to Fairfax, VA, after I realized that I'd forgotten my watch. So I pulled out my cell phone only to find that it had turned itself off because the battery had no charge. The first thought that came to my mind was: absent minded professor. So naturally, I wanted to blame it all on the soul-sucking effect that a PhD has on a person. But unfortunately for me, the very same PhD had trained me to spot logical inconsistencies in a theory faster than a speeding bullet.5 How can I blame it on PhD if I've had these symptoms ever since I can remember.
May be the reason is I'm always lost in thought... daydreaming is more like it. I am always thinking about imaginary situations, mostly complicated conundrums, some physics equations that I read about on the internet, figuring out how to solve a particular problem on the computer in at least five different programming languages, or trying to choreograph to a song that is playing at that particular moment in my head.
I doubt there is a cure for daydreaming. Luckily for me, my epitaph won't say, "Here lies a man who dreamt himself to death," because I asphyxiated during a daydreaming session, forgetting to perform the voluntary act of breathing.
1 Yes, I do understand what my wife is saying. Well, most of the time.
2 Sorry, the last part was a bit of dramatization. I still haven't taught myself the art of punctuating the responses to my beloved with phrases like "yes dear" and "honey" or its shortened counterpart "hon."
3 Why do you look at me like that? Normal people do have those lying around on their desk, don't they?
4 Yes, I'm a recluse and don't like to talk on the phone. But that will be the topic for another day.
5 That is right, kids, PhD makes you the superman of smelling bullshit in publications. At least, it will give you an ego big enough to pooh-pooh other theories which aren't built upon yours and don't cite your publications at least thrice in their publications.
The problem is that I cannot remember the most routine activities on a daily basis. For example, I've been wearing a wristwatch since the age of 13; and yet after 16 years, I still, oftentimes, forget to wear it when I head out to work in the mornings. My wife says, "Can you do
It is not like I've a poor memory. In fact, compared to many people, I come across as having an elephantine or photographic memory. I can remember snippets of very casual conversations (over Instant Messaging, that is the only kind of conversation I've been known to be capable of) from two years ago down to the last minute detail. I can remember roads and locations just by driving through it once. And yet I cannot remember to pay my electricity bill without a dozen reminders. I cannot remember to post the mail-in rebate offer until almost the deadline, regardless of the fact that I would've filled the form the day it arrived, attached the UPC code and put it in an envelope and sealed it. But it would sit there in my desk gathering dust because I would not have a stamp handy to mail it off right away. And pretty quickly, it would be buried under a pile of electronics like hard drives, video cards, memory chips, etc.3
Oh! Another good one: charging my cell phone battery. One would think that after 5 years of owning a cell phone, you'd get used to the mundane routine of putting it on the charger every night or so. But not me! You'd not believe the number of times someone tried to reach me and the phone was off because it was low on battery and they think that I'm deliberately avoiding their calls or screening calls.4
I started wondering about my inability to remember routine tasks on the long and boring metro ride to Fairfax, VA, after I realized that I'd forgotten my watch. So I pulled out my cell phone only to find that it had turned itself off because the battery had no charge. The first thought that came to my mind was: absent minded professor. So naturally, I wanted to blame it all on the soul-sucking effect that a PhD has on a person. But unfortunately for me, the very same PhD had trained me to spot logical inconsistencies in a theory faster than a speeding bullet.5 How can I blame it on PhD if I've had these symptoms ever since I can remember.
May be the reason is I'm always lost in thought... daydreaming is more like it. I am always thinking about imaginary situations, mostly complicated conundrums, some physics equations that I read about on the internet, figuring out how to solve a particular problem on the computer in at least five different programming languages, or trying to choreograph to a song that is playing at that particular moment in my head.
I doubt there is a cure for daydreaming. Luckily for me, my epitaph won't say, "Here lies a man who dreamt himself to death," because I asphyxiated during a daydreaming session, forgetting to perform the voluntary act of breathing.
1 Yes, I do understand what my wife is saying. Well, most of the time.
2 Sorry, the last part was a bit of dramatization. I still haven't taught myself the art of punctuating the responses to my beloved with phrases like "yes dear" and "honey" or its shortened counterpart "hon."
3 Why do you look at me like that? Normal people do have those lying around on their desk, don't they?
4 Yes, I'm a recluse and don't like to talk on the phone. But that will be the topic for another day.
5 That is right, kids, PhD makes you the superman of smelling bullshit in publications. At least, it will give you an ego big enough to pooh-pooh other theories which aren't built upon yours and don't cite your publications at least thrice in their publications.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
FORTRAN
Reading Slashdot this morning informed me that John W. Backus, the developer of FORTRAN died last weekend (NY Times link). Aerospace/computational fluid dynamics geeks might be amongst the dying breed who still use fixed-form FORTRAN as their bread-and-butter programming language. All of us have at different times expressed frustration at the quirks of the language, and wished that it had nifty features which made our lives easier in the more higher level programming languages. But I doubt very few languages can even come close to beating FORTRAN's efficiency when it comes to serious number crunching algorithms. And, yes, it is still FORTRAN for us old-timers.
On an unrelated note, one comment on Slashdot pointed out the hilarity of the Slashdot title for this article John W. Backus Dies at 82; Developed FORTRAN. Headline writing, especially in English, is an art.
On an unrelated note, one comment on Slashdot pointed out the hilarity of the Slashdot title for this article John W. Backus Dies at 82; Developed FORTRAN. Headline writing, especially in English, is an art.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Kids these days
... that and "Back in my day, we'd to..." are pretty much the responses that I'm used to when it comes to discussing education (or the stuff you'd to know by a certain grade level) with my grandparents. The point that always came across was that we kids were getting off easier than how the adults had it back in their childhood. And what's worse, every time this topic came around, they would invariably ask, "So what are they teaching you in school these days?" And the idiot that I was, I'd brag about the most difficult thing (at least in my opinion at that point of time) that I'd heard about in school. This would lead them to quiz me on the subject, and determine how much I knew, which, I'd be made painfully aware of, is pretty much nothing. Of course, I'm much wiser now and just mumble when this question comes up, except in my CV.
But this was back in India, and back when I was growing up. Now in America, it seems that the opinion is quite different, at least that is the impression I get after watching the show Are you smarter than a 5th grader?: that kids in grade school learn and know much more than what adults know about, or have long forgotten if they were ever taught these things in the first place. I am sure that the adults generally agree that they were taught a lot more things which the kids these don't have to, e.g., do cursive writing, learn grammar and spelling, or use slide rules. But I also see that the adults generally are quick to follow it up with this disclaimer: "Kids these days have calculators to do these things, do you think they'd know what to do with a slide rule? Of course, I never understood any of it, and boy it was difficult." What am I missing? Why is it that something that I'd think you'd brag about with pride, like say knowing how to use a slide rule and still knowing how to use it, is often dismissed off with a disclaimer "we'd to do it, but we didn't know what the hell we were doing"?
Anyway, back to the show, I saw the promos while watching reruns of Simpson, and it did make me wonder, I'm ashamed to admit, if I knew the concepts that a fifth-grader should know. So I watched the show yesterday, and boy were the questions trivial. But people seemed to have trouble with it. Of course, there was this question: what is the minimum number of coins you'd need to make 61¢? and I answered 4, because I didn't know 50¢ coins existed!
Another question that I was not sure of, more like a nitpick, is: What gas do humans exhale that is important for the plants to survive? I think that is the exact wording, but I cannot guarantee. However, while the expected answer is probably obvious from the context of a fifth-grade level knowledge, I think that the question is ambiguous. Humans exhale air which has a significant amount of O2 and CO2. Now plants need both these gases to survive. So unless they clearly specify if they meant plant photosynthesis or plant respiration, the answer is unclear.
Am I right, or am I, in fact, NOT smarter than a 5th grader?
But this was back in India, and back when I was growing up. Now in America, it seems that the opinion is quite different, at least that is the impression I get after watching the show Are you smarter than a 5th grader?: that kids in grade school learn and know much more than what adults know about, or have long forgotten if they were ever taught these things in the first place. I am sure that the adults generally agree that they were taught a lot more things which the kids these don't have to, e.g., do cursive writing, learn grammar and spelling, or use slide rules. But I also see that the adults generally are quick to follow it up with this disclaimer: "Kids these days have calculators to do these things, do you think they'd know what to do with a slide rule? Of course, I never understood any of it, and boy it was difficult." What am I missing? Why is it that something that I'd think you'd brag about with pride, like say knowing how to use a slide rule and still knowing how to use it, is often dismissed off with a disclaimer "we'd to do it, but we didn't know what the hell we were doing"?
Anyway, back to the show, I saw the promos while watching reruns of Simpson, and it did make me wonder, I'm ashamed to admit, if I knew the concepts that a fifth-grader should know. So I watched the show yesterday, and boy were the questions trivial. But people seemed to have trouble with it. Of course, there was this question: what is the minimum number of coins you'd need to make 61¢? and I answered 4, because I didn't know 50¢ coins existed!
Another question that I was not sure of, more like a nitpick, is: What gas do humans exhale that is important for the plants to survive? I think that is the exact wording, but I cannot guarantee. However, while the expected answer is probably obvious from the context of a fifth-grade level knowledge, I think that the question is ambiguous. Humans exhale air which has a significant amount of O2 and CO2. Now plants need both these gases to survive. So unless they clearly specify if they meant plant photosynthesis or plant respiration, the answer is unclear.
Am I right, or am I, in fact, NOT smarter than a 5th grader?
Thursday, March 15, 2007
What is your pedigree?
My friend Maccanena has this unique superhero-like serendipity that makes her stumble upon the most interesting of websites. If it weren't for the fact that she immediately sends me the links to these interesting sites, I'd be extremely jealous of her powers.
Today, she stumbled across this treasure-trove of a site (for ignoring what we were supposed to do and go on a link-clicking-spree, that is) for math and science geeks like me. Trying to schedule her PhD defense she came across the mathematical lineage page of a professor in University of Maryland, College Park. The mathematical lineage was traced all the way back to Lagrange via people like Courant, Hilbert, Dirichlet, Poisson and Fourier! Now if that array of names didn't make your jaw just drop onto the keyboard, a la Jim Carrey's in the movie The Mask when he saw Cameron Diaz, then you sir (or madam as the case may be) are no geek or have ice water running in your veins.
Needless, to say the geeks in us were extremely amused and excited about it wondering what great scientists we might be linked to. The link provided at the end of the page didn't work, but a simple search of mathematics genealogy quickly led me to The Mathematics Genealogy Project. Now while the page says Mathematics, it is much broader than the general "math" that most people are used to.
A search of the database for Lagrange yields a connection to Euler (more as an intellectual link and not as a thesis advisor) and from there on to Bernoulli. Somewhere along the line Kronecker also was featured. Now to find other Fluid Dynamics greats in the list... I fear much of the rest of the day, and probably the next few days will be wasted in tracing the genealogy and possibly reading the original papers and dissertations from famous scientists and mathematicians. This happened once before when I came across the original paper on Reynolds number which was reprinted for Osborne Reynolds' birthday a couple of years ago.
Talking about genealogy, I am reminded that the place where I work has an apple tree which is purported to be the direct descendant of the apple tree that Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under when an apple fell on his head and led to the theory of gravity. Thought whoever is reading this would like to know.
Today, she stumbled across this treasure-trove of a site (for ignoring what we were supposed to do and go on a link-clicking-spree, that is) for math and science geeks like me. Trying to schedule her PhD defense she came across the mathematical lineage page of a professor in University of Maryland, College Park. The mathematical lineage was traced all the way back to Lagrange via people like Courant, Hilbert, Dirichlet, Poisson and Fourier! Now if that array of names didn't make your jaw just drop onto the keyboard, a la Jim Carrey's in the movie The Mask when he saw Cameron Diaz, then you sir (or madam as the case may be) are no geek or have ice water running in your veins.
Needless, to say the geeks in us were extremely amused and excited about it wondering what great scientists we might be linked to. The link provided at the end of the page didn't work, but a simple search of mathematics genealogy quickly led me to The Mathematics Genealogy Project. Now while the page says Mathematics, it is much broader than the general "math" that most people are used to.
A search of the database for Lagrange yields a connection to Euler (more as an intellectual link and not as a thesis advisor) and from there on to Bernoulli. Somewhere along the line Kronecker also was featured. Now to find other Fluid Dynamics greats in the list... I fear much of the rest of the day, and probably the next few days will be wasted in tracing the genealogy and possibly reading the original papers and dissertations from famous scientists and mathematicians. This happened once before when I came across the original paper on Reynolds number which was reprinted for Osborne Reynolds' birthday a couple of years ago.
Talking about genealogy, I am reminded that the place where I work has an apple tree which is purported to be the direct descendant of the apple tree that Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under when an apple fell on his head and led to the theory of gravity. Thought whoever is reading this would like to know.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
There are no equals in research.
Researchers, especially the ones with a Dr. in front of the name, or a Ph.D trailing after their name, or worse (or even better?) a Dr. in front of their name and a Ph.D trailing after their name, or, the ultimate, a Dr. in front of their name, a Ph.D trailing after their name and a title like Albert E. Linnaeus Professor of the School of Engineering, have big egos.
And, it is a fact that a graduate student can prove no theory quicker than he could prove that when two such researchers get together, no conference room is large enough to hold both their egos. It doesn't matter if they are working on exactly the same problem, using the same approaches, and refer to the same set of literature references in all their papers (in the Previous Work section), each would still have nothing but scorn for the other person's approach, mainly because it deviates from their own approach by a trifling detail.
The numerical simulations guys are only too familiar with this, "His research is worthless, he has no understanding of the empirical model. He uses α=0.3756 ×10-6, when clearly everyone knows it is 0.3782 ×10-6. How can you trust a research like that?" And who can forget the experimentalists' opinion, "Clearly everyone knows that you cannot get any reliable data when you conduct measurements at 10 microns resolution, you need at least 1 micron resolution, that is why we got this fancy new equipment. And don't even get me started on his curve-fit approach. The error bars are all over the place."
From there on, it just gets worse as you move further up the spectrum, computational simulation guys vs. experimentalists, engineers vs. scientists, economists vs. science folk, etc. They all sincerely believe that their field is the most complicated and that others can never fathom the intricacies involved, whereas they inherently have a better understanding of the other's field mainly because it is simpler than their own.
Personally, I feel that my own field was so mind-boggling-ly simple that I feel that my PhD degree was a steal, and I wake up in the nights with scary dreams of how an angry horde of professors discovering how I'd duped them came crashing down on my house for revenge. I've often wondered, how people achieve this sense of accomplishment and a feeling that their PhD is worth something. I mean don't they just beat out all sense of self-worth during your PhD? How does it grow back? My theory is that professors (well, as with every theory it only works on a finite sample set of cases and has more exceptions to the rule), at least, build it back up by breaking the spirits of their graduate students.
Anyway, leaving my morbid dreams aside for the moment, and returning to the topic, it is always amusing to be a part of this clash of egos, assuming that you are watching it from a distance and never have to take sides or chip in with your opinion. The argument never ends, each party tries to act sympathetic to other's inability to fathom the depth and complexity of their research. Different tactics are employed: "Because of your experience in your field/approach, you are making assumptions which just cannot be made in our field/approach. These things have distinct meanings, which you'll never understand even if I explain it.", or "You know you are complicating things far more than necessary. But I guess that is the inherent nature of your field/approach, and you are struggling to get our way of thinking/approaching the subject matter.", or when one suddenly realizes that the other person just stated their life's work in a much more clear, concise manner than they'd ever been able to, "Well, you are almost there, there are some nuances which you are obviously missing. But, of course, we cannot expect you to know them. So let us just move on for the sake of time. We've only booked this conference room for another hour you know."
The only happy coexistence between two researchers is when there is a master-slave err... I mean master-subordinate relationship. Once the pecking order is established, nothing paints a more harmonious picture than a research lab. Approximations of this peaceful coexistence can be found in situations when one controls the funding that the other desperately needs to survive. On the surface, they paint a picture of serene calm, but in private this situation makes for the best drama. Too bad, they don't have reality shows about PhD nerds. I'd watch that. Oh wait, PhD comics is a pretty good approximation of that. Damn, and I thought I'd a million-dollar idea. Oh well, back to research then.
And, it is a fact that a graduate student can prove no theory quicker than he could prove that when two such researchers get together, no conference room is large enough to hold both their egos. It doesn't matter if they are working on exactly the same problem, using the same approaches, and refer to the same set of literature references in all their papers (in the Previous Work section), each would still have nothing but scorn for the other person's approach, mainly because it deviates from their own approach by a trifling detail.
The numerical simulations guys are only too familiar with this, "His research is worthless, he has no understanding of the empirical model. He uses α=0.3756 ×10-6, when clearly everyone knows it is 0.3782 ×10-6. How can you trust a research like that?" And who can forget the experimentalists' opinion, "Clearly everyone knows that you cannot get any reliable data when you conduct measurements at 10 microns resolution, you need at least 1 micron resolution, that is why we got this fancy new equipment. And don't even get me started on his curve-fit approach. The error bars are all over the place."
From there on, it just gets worse as you move further up the spectrum, computational simulation guys vs. experimentalists, engineers vs. scientists, economists vs. science folk, etc. They all sincerely believe that their field is the most complicated and that others can never fathom the intricacies involved, whereas they inherently have a better understanding of the other's field mainly because it is simpler than their own.
Personally, I feel that my own field was so mind-boggling-ly simple that I feel that my PhD degree was a steal, and I wake up in the nights with scary dreams of how an angry horde of professors discovering how I'd duped them came crashing down on my house for revenge. I've often wondered, how people achieve this sense of accomplishment and a feeling that their PhD is worth something. I mean don't they just beat out all sense of self-worth during your PhD? How does it grow back? My theory is that professors (well, as with every theory it only works on a finite sample set of cases and has more exceptions to the rule), at least, build it back up by breaking the spirits of their graduate students.
Anyway, leaving my morbid dreams aside for the moment, and returning to the topic, it is always amusing to be a part of this clash of egos, assuming that you are watching it from a distance and never have to take sides or chip in with your opinion. The argument never ends, each party tries to act sympathetic to other's inability to fathom the depth and complexity of their research. Different tactics are employed: "Because of your experience in your field/approach, you are making assumptions which just cannot be made in our field/approach. These things have distinct meanings, which you'll never understand even if I explain it.", or "You know you are complicating things far more than necessary. But I guess that is the inherent nature of your field/approach, and you are struggling to get our way of thinking/approaching the subject matter.", or when one suddenly realizes that the other person just stated their life's work in a much more clear, concise manner than they'd ever been able to, "Well, you are almost there, there are some nuances which you are obviously missing. But, of course, we cannot expect you to know them. So let us just move on for the sake of time. We've only booked this conference room for another hour you know."
The only happy coexistence between two researchers is when there is a master-slave err... I mean master-subordinate relationship. Once the pecking order is established, nothing paints a more harmonious picture than a research lab. Approximations of this peaceful coexistence can be found in situations when one controls the funding that the other desperately needs to survive. On the surface, they paint a picture of serene calm, but in private this situation makes for the best drama. Too bad, they don't have reality shows about PhD nerds. I'd watch that. Oh wait, PhD comics is a pretty good approximation of that. Damn, and I thought I'd a million-dollar idea. Oh well, back to research then.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Louisville slugger
Although I am of the opinion that much of the country music is quite silly with trucks and whiskey, it seems that listening to country music on the radio did teach me something new about the great American tradition of baseball.
Lately, I've been hearing the term Louisville slugger on almost every country music song that I hear. Well, not almost every song, I exaggerate, I've heard it in two songs. One is by Mary Chopin Carpenter whose title I forget, the song goes something like "sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, sometimes you're the ball." And the other song is by an artist whose name I cannot remember, nor can I remember the title, but it is about jilted lover smashing the tricked-up four-wheel-drive that belongs to the guy who dumped her.
Initially, when I'd heard the Mary Chopin song, I figured she was referring to the nickname of some famous baseball player, and since I'm not at all interested in baseball (even though I like cricket very much, and the Cricket world cup starts soon!), I left it at that.
But then when I heard the lyrics about hitting a four-wheel-drive with Louisville slugger, I'd to wonder - it would take a woman of extraordinary strength to be able to wield a baseball player. Now to the feminists out there, I'm not trying to be chauvinistic and saying that women can never do that, I'm just saying it is weird. Now, putting aside the question of Louisville slugger, one must wonder if she was arrested for vandalizing someone else's property.
So using my amazing powers of scientific reasoning and deduction (after all I've a PhD, never mind I got that because the department ran out of funding and had to send me off with a PhD so as to not mar their good graduation record) I figured out that they must be talking about a baseball bat. Yeah, it was a clever piece of deductive reasoning that led me to conclude that the sport must be baseball because of the word slugger. Genius, huh?
Once at work, I consulted the omniscient Google, and I'm enlightened. Louisville slugger is a famous baseball bat which have been used in US games since 1884, and is apparently the Official Baseball Bat of MLB.
Coming to think of it, it was a good thing that I wasn't quizzed on this sport by my father-in-law as a part of the approval process to marry his daughter. Phew!
Lately, I've been hearing the term Louisville slugger on almost every country music song that I hear. Well, not almost every song, I exaggerate, I've heard it in two songs. One is by Mary Chopin Carpenter whose title I forget, the song goes something like "sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, sometimes you're the ball." And the other song is by an artist whose name I cannot remember, nor can I remember the title, but it is about jilted lover smashing the tricked-up four-wheel-drive that belongs to the guy who dumped her.
Initially, when I'd heard the Mary Chopin song, I figured she was referring to the nickname of some famous baseball player, and since I'm not at all interested in baseball (even though I like cricket very much, and the Cricket world cup starts soon!), I left it at that.
But then when I heard the lyrics about hitting a four-wheel-drive with Louisville slugger, I'd to wonder - it would take a woman of extraordinary strength to be able to wield a baseball player. Now to the feminists out there, I'm not trying to be chauvinistic and saying that women can never do that, I'm just saying it is weird. Now, putting aside the question of Louisville slugger, one must wonder if she was arrested for vandalizing someone else's property.
So using my amazing powers of scientific reasoning and deduction (after all I've a PhD, never mind I got that because the department ran out of funding and had to send me off with a PhD so as to not mar their good graduation record) I figured out that they must be talking about a baseball bat. Yeah, it was a clever piece of deductive reasoning that led me to conclude that the sport must be baseball because of the word slugger. Genius, huh?
Once at work, I consulted the omniscient Google, and I'm enlightened. Louisville slugger is a famous baseball bat which have been used in US games since 1884, and is apparently the Official Baseball Bat of MLB.
Coming to think of it, it was a good thing that I wasn't quizzed on this sport by my father-in-law as a part of the approval process to marry his daughter. Phew!
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Of wedding invitations
My wife and I were discussing our wedding invitations today, or rather what our invitations should say. For those of you who are scratching your head and wondering, "why do you worry about the text on your wedding invitations after you are married? Obviously, you're married, otherwise you cannot call her your wife." Good job, Sherlock, but ours isn't anything like a traditional wedding. We decided to do away with the traditional ceremony, and just got married at the courthouse. Now we are planning a wedding reception, which will (hopefully) happen in the next six months. These invitations are for the wedding reception.
We started out with the traditional stuff. My wife prefers the usage: "The presence of your company is requested...", and I prefer the usage: "... request the pleasure of your company..." A google-fight of the two usages shows that the latter is more prevalent. Any opinions?
Anyway, this got me thinking of all the various wordings in invitations I think I've come across so far...
"... invite you to join us in blessing the couple as they embark..."
"... share their happiness as they begin their journey of life as partners..."
"... celebrate their union as they exchange vows..."
etc. Although I don't think I've ever come across this,
"... celebrate their license to fornicate under state and religious sanction..." (My wife likes this one especially. Too bad, we cannot go with this.)
I wonder why.
Oh, anyone who stumbles on this page, please leave suggestions for our invitation wording in the comments if you happen to read this within one month of the posting date. As for the funny, outlandish invitation wordings that you can think of... you can leave them on the comments section anytime.
We started out with the traditional stuff. My wife prefers the usage: "The presence of your company is requested...", and I prefer the usage: "... request the pleasure of your company..." A google-fight of the two usages shows that the latter is more prevalent. Any opinions?
Anyway, this got me thinking of all the various wordings in invitations I think I've come across so far...
"... invite you to join us in blessing the couple as they embark..."
"... share their happiness as they begin their journey of life as partners..."
"... celebrate their union as they exchange vows..."
etc. Although I don't think I've ever come across this,
"... celebrate their license to fornicate under state and religious sanction..." (My wife likes this one especially. Too bad, we cannot go with this.)
I wonder why.
Oh, anyone who stumbles on this page, please leave suggestions for our invitation wording in the comments if you happen to read this within one month of the posting date. As for the funny, outlandish invitation wordings that you can think of... you can leave them on the comments section anytime.
PhDs on blogosphere
This blog seems to have absolutely no visitors (other than my three, may be two these days, loyal readers). I guess it is partly my fault that I've an account on blogger rather than on livejournal, myspace, facebook or one of those social networking sites, where more of my friends would stumble upon it. I detest social networking sites pretty much for same reasons the respectable physicists in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy detested the use of Finite Improbablity for breaking ice at parties: I'm never invited to these social networking sites, nor am I ever added to anybody's friends list.
Yesterday, I was lamenting the poor readership of this blog to Maccanena, and she mentioned this blogging community of postdocs. Starting with propterdoc's blog, I went on a link-clicking spree which wasted the rest of my afternoon. A few had clever titles like Minor Revisions, which led me to consider some silly titles like Results & Discussion, or Conclusions & Future Work for my own blog. Some seemed to rediscover the academic concept: if you don't publish, you don't exist, a fact I, and some of my friends, were sorely made aware of by our diligent advisors back in our PhD days. However, one common thread in all these blogs: folks worrying about results, publications, funding or the lack of it.
One thing I noticed is that much of the postdoc bloggers I've come across so far are mostly women, at least they sound that way on the blog. Does it mean that there are more women postdocs than men postdocs, or does it mean that women vent more than men online on blogs?
P.S. For those of you who didn't get the Hitchhiker's reference: "The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub- Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood - and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy.
Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this - partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."
P.P.S. You should check out the xkcd's strip on the trouble with Wikipedia.
Yesterday, I was lamenting the poor readership of this blog to Maccanena, and she mentioned this blogging community of postdocs. Starting with propterdoc's blog, I went on a link-clicking spree which wasted the rest of my afternoon. A few had clever titles like Minor Revisions, which led me to consider some silly titles like Results & Discussion, or Conclusions & Future Work for my own blog. Some seemed to rediscover the academic concept: if you don't publish, you don't exist, a fact I, and some of my friends, were sorely made aware of by our diligent advisors back in our PhD days. However, one common thread in all these blogs: folks worrying about results, publications, funding or the lack of it.
One thing I noticed is that much of the postdoc bloggers I've come across so far are mostly women, at least they sound that way on the blog. Does it mean that there are more women postdocs than men postdocs, or does it mean that women vent more than men online on blogs?
P.S. For those of you who didn't get the Hitchhiker's reference: "The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub- Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood - and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy.
Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this - partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."
P.P.S. You should check out the xkcd's strip on the trouble with Wikipedia.
A flash-based quiz
So here is something for those that stumbled over here to waste time on: a quiz.
Hopefully, this will cheer up those who are looking to waste time at work clicking on something silly and time-wasting. Also you might want to hit the mute button.
Hopefully, this will cheer up those who are looking to waste time at work clicking on something silly and time-wasting. Also you might want to hit the mute button.
Monday, March 05, 2007
RIP: Scattered thoughts...
Continuing on with the spring cleaning of the blog, I've decided to change the title to what, in my opinion, represents the blog more accurately: a digital snapshot of the neural misfirings of my brain.
Now if only I can find some issue to blog about...
Now if only I can find some issue to blog about...
Spring cleaning
I'm bored, can you tell?
So now that I've overcome the inertia and have started dusting off the cobwebs off of my decrepit blog, I'm trying to come up with things to do with it or post to it.
I'd like a new design (layout, color scheme, fonts) for the blog. Blogger has a small list of templates, none of which I particularly like over the present one. So even after two years... this seems like the best of the worst. Wow! Just had a realization that my tastes haven't changed much over the last two years. Not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing.
I notice that the blogger interface had changed quite a bit. I'd read about the renovations on Slashdot ages ago, but never bothered to do the migration, nor did I check out the new interface. The labels option seems like a good addition. Me likee. So now that brings the question of whether I should have different blogs for topics, like rants, computer geekery, and *sigh* cats... (of course, this one will always be the home of pointless rants and in-my-egotistical-opinion funny writings), or just use labels to tag articles appropriately. But then again, if I use labels, will I be able to do sub-categories? I guess I'll have to investigate blogger features to figure this out.
At this point, a faint voice in my head gently reminds me that the more important issue here is: am I going to sustain enough interest in this blogging fad long enough to run into limitations of labeling system in blogger? Judging by the last time, probably not. I guess that pretty much answers it.
Random thought(s) that popped into my head while writing this entry: I was reminded of this funny xkcd comic while talking about cats.
So now that I've overcome the inertia and have started dusting off the cobwebs off of my decrepit blog, I'm trying to come up with things to do with it or post to it.
I'd like a new design (layout, color scheme, fonts) for the blog. Blogger has a small list of templates, none of which I particularly like over the present one. So even after two years... this seems like the best of the worst. Wow! Just had a realization that my tastes haven't changed much over the last two years. Not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing.
I notice that the blogger interface had changed quite a bit. I'd read about the renovations on Slashdot ages ago, but never bothered to do the migration, nor did I check out the new interface. The labels option seems like a good addition. Me likee. So now that brings the question of whether I should have different blogs for topics, like rants, computer geekery, and *sigh* cats... (of course, this one will always be the home of pointless rants and in-my-egotistical-opinion funny writings), or just use labels to tag articles appropriately. But then again, if I use labels, will I be able to do sub-categories? I guess I'll have to investigate blogger features to figure this out.
At this point, a faint voice in my head gently reminds me that the more important issue here is: am I going to sustain enough interest in this blogging fad long enough to run into limitations of labeling system in blogger? Judging by the last time, probably not. I guess that pretty much answers it.
Random thought(s) that popped into my head while writing this entry: I was reminded of this funny xkcd comic while talking about cats.
No time for cynicism...
In other words, I finished up my PhD, graduated from university, got myself a job and embraced the adult way of life. That, in a nutshell, is my explanation/excuse for neglecting this blog during the last one and half years.
Well, almost! The first half was mostly spent on wrapping up what was long and seemingly never-ending research spanning four years, summarizing it in what turned out to be approximately 250 pages of text (double spaced, 10pt Times New Roman font) and figures, and about 50 minutes worth of Powerpoint presentation. Reminded me of that PhD comics strip. Then came the task of finding a job, which by a combination of my laziness, ill-luck and ineptitude(?) turned out extremely suspenseful. Once I got the job, life just went ahead and made itself too busy to even contemplate anything else; and before I knew it, it was one and half years... the blog languished, gathering dust and cobwebs.
Of course, it must be mentioned that during this period, I realized that the friend that I was good friends with, was much more than a friend. This realization necessitated me to undergo the age-old romance ritual which I have jeered all through my life. Oh! how the mighty fall. This downfall caused much mirth and celebration amongst my friends. Luckily for me, the girl I fell in love with is as lazy and sociopath-ical as I am. So we are quite cozy in our own little world.
Things that have transpired since I last wrote up a blog entry:
As you can see, things happened one after another in a quick succession, and I was left with no time to be cynical about things... until now...
Well, almost! The first half was mostly spent on wrapping up what was long and seemingly never-ending research spanning four years, summarizing it in what turned out to be approximately 250 pages of text (double spaced, 10pt Times New Roman font) and figures, and about 50 minutes worth of Powerpoint presentation. Reminded me of that PhD comics strip. Then came the task of finding a job, which by a combination of my laziness, ill-luck and ineptitude(?) turned out extremely suspenseful. Once I got the job, life just went ahead and made itself too busy to even contemplate anything else; and before I knew it, it was one and half years... the blog languished, gathering dust and cobwebs.
Of course, it must be mentioned that during this period, I realized that the friend that I was good friends with, was much more than a friend. This realization necessitated me to undergo the age-old romance ritual which I have jeered all through my life. Oh! how the mighty fall. This downfall caused much mirth and celebration amongst my friends. Luckily for me, the girl I fell in love with is as lazy and sociopath-ical as I am. So we are quite cozy in our own little world.
Things that have transpired since I last wrote up a blog entry:
- Finished up my PhD thesis. Reason: department ran out of funding and had to let me graduate.
- Successfully defended aforementioned thesis.
- Landed myself an adult job... as a postdoc. Net pay increase: $100 per month :( Bottom-line: poorer than I was since I last blogged. Reason: no more student discounts on things.
- The adult job required me to know a lot of things that had nothing in relation to my PhD topic, thereby necessitating a crash course of most stuff that computer science majors and code monkeys learn in the first year of undergraduate course.
- Quickly developed a sense of cynicism about the new job, and realized that the work place is not as great as it is touted to be, especially if you are only paid a 100 bucks more each month, but are expected to work more than you did for your PhD. Promptly started missing the PhD life.
- Now this is important... so pay attention! Found the love of my life. Bottom-line: now have to learn how to be romantic and realize that the voice in the background is not my roommate watching TV at a high volume, but my girlfriend saying something. So I've to actually pay attention and not continue to stare at the bright monitor in the dark room.
- Moved to a new house with my girlfriend. Standard of living improved drastically.
- Married the aforementioned love of my life. Sounds like a fairy tale almost. Quite a recent development and one that I'm truly happy about. No complaints here. No really! Really really!
- Proud father of two fat and lazy cats. Bottom-line: Nothing in our house is safe anymore. If you treasure something, lock it away... or else risk curious cats scratching all over it.
As you can see, things happened one after another in a quick succession, and I was left with no time to be cynical about things... until now...
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