It happens only in India...

The story so far...

I hate journals and conferences. Reading, writing papers for journals, every aspect of it. It is bad enough that I have to do research and boldly split infinitives that no man has split before (Ref. 1). But no, that is not enough, I have to report it too. Of course, I see why peer review is necessary and today was a perfect example of that. I was re-deriving the equations in an attempt to rebutt a question raised by a reviewer when I discovered that one of the assumptions I made was incorrect. Net effect: my results might be wrong. ::shock and disbelief:: I do not know yet, because the code will take a good three days before it can deliver the final results and, therefore, a verdict on my fate.

All afternoon I have been imagining the different ways of having a heart attack (you won't get the reference if you haven't seen the movie, the situation is very close to that in the movie).

Reviewer: What now?
My advisor: I will tell you what now. He will get a sleeping bag and a noodle maker and get to work on that code over there. You hear me talking, you desi boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I am going to get medieval on your ass.
Reviewer: I mean what about the review?
My advisor: Oh! That what now? I will tell you what now about the review. There is no review. Not no more. Two things: One, he has lost all his publishing privileges. Deal? He eats code and sleeps code. And two, don't tell nobody about this. This is between you, me and soon to be living his whole life in agonizing pain, staring at a dull monitor without net connection, punk ass research assistant here.

And I am thinking nothing can cheer me up... this is it... the end of my research... my PhD... I will have to pack my bags and go back to India. Ah! India... So I head over to the web to see what is happening in India. If I have to go live there, I might as well update myself as to what is happening there. But India... good old India, never lets me down. Never has failed yet to put a smile on my face. And this time was no different. I stumbled upon this piece of news about Indian cops and their ineptness when dealing with technology. Apparently, when asked to confiscate computers the cops returned with the monitors and not the hard drives. Also they stapled floppies together like documents. I have been laughing my heart out ever since. I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine about Indian's technological prowess. This should help her realize that the tech savvy segment is a very short percentage of the actual Indian population.

OK, time to get into character, a servile graduate research assistant. (Spoken in Appu's -of The Simpsons fame- voice) A thousand apologies for the overdose of Pulp Fiction reference.

(A la LiveJournal ishtyle) Current mood: Wondering if I can get a job heading up the anti-cybercrime squad in India. :-/ (Obligatory display of net-savvyness)

References:

1. Adams, D., Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Reissue edition, Ballantine Books, 1995.