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*
Monday, April 02, 2007
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...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
War on words...
I am not entirely sure if I should say war on words or at war with words. What I mean is that I have decided to wage a war against certain words.
Now why would you want to wage a war against words? Do you have any good reasons for it?
Oh, so now we need reasons to wage a war? Whatever happened to freedom and stuff like that? Anyway, I digress.
That is nothing new.
Riiight... as I was saying, I have decided that I will wage a war against certain words.
Any word in particular?
The word cute comes to mind immediately.
Of course, it is not as if I woke up this morning (nothing fine about it I must confess, it is dull and cloudy and looks like it is going to rain) and decided that I launch an offensive against what would seem to be harmless words. I have strong opinions on the usage of certain words. Many of you (more accurately, the three of you who read my blog) would remember my diatribe against the word awesome a while ago. I have been averse to the word cute used in any phrase or sentence for as long as I can remember. What irks me is the word is almost always used in situations where you feel like puking. For example, Awwww... that is so cute. Or worse, that is cho chweet. To me, there is very little difference between the sound of that sentence and the sound of a chalkpiece screeching on a blackboard.
But surely you must agree that there are situations which can only be expressed by using the word "cute".
Yes, I agree. However, according to me, the only legitimate use of the word cute is to describe baby elephants, as in the sentence... baby elephants are cute. Go on, imagine it. You cannot stop thinking about those calves running around, (not at all like the sober, dignified gait of the fully grown elephants) with their big ears flapping around and their trunks (only as long as their tails) stretched out (as are their tails), and in between the legs of the adult elephants now, can you?
Is it just the baby elephants? Why not puppies, kittens etc.? They are cute too, aren't they?
No, allowing the use of the word cute in those situations opens up the word for more abuse, exactly the kind that I am trying to squelch out. For example, people will use the word "cute as a puppy" or "cute as a kitten" even for situations where there is no puppies or kittens invovled. However, think about it, you can never use cute and baby elephant in one sentence unless you are talking about how cute the baby elephants are. If you dream of any success in your relationship pursuits then never ever compare the object of thine admiration to a baby elephants. As romantic as it may sound to you, believe me, the girls never seem to appreciate the "cute as a baby elephant" comparison. I am speaking from experience here so trust me on this one. Thus, the phrase "cute as a baby elephant" is never going to be abused (anyone who abuses it will face the wrath of the fairer sex and very rightly so), leaving but one legitimate choice for that combination... to describe baby elephants, which was my original point.
Don't you think you are overreacting? After all it is not the word's fault that it is being abused.
I am not entirely sure if I should pick the guns don't kill people, people kill people or the hate the sin, not the sinner stance here. Sure the word itself has legitimate uses, but people tend to abuse it. But does the word exist without its meaning? If not, then the very fact that it conveys a certain meaning/expression is what makes it a word... and, therefore, makes it abusable?
I have no idea what you just said there, but I believe that is no reason to wage a war on words.
Don't worry, I don't understand it fully either. That is why I am following the age old adage There is no problem that is so big that cannot be solved by a liberal amount of explosives. So just nuke the word out of existence and, hopefully, the problem will go away too.
You said "war on words..." and so far you only talked about cute. What are the other words?
Honey, sweetheart... phrases like... I can't live without you...
Now why would you want to wage a war against words? Do you have any good reasons for it?
Oh, so now we need reasons to wage a war? Whatever happened to freedom and stuff like that? Anyway, I digress.
That is nothing new.
Riiight... as I was saying, I have decided that I will wage a war against certain words.
Any word in particular?
The word cute comes to mind immediately.
Of course, it is not as if I woke up this morning (nothing fine about it I must confess, it is dull and cloudy and looks like it is going to rain) and decided that I launch an offensive against what would seem to be harmless words. I have strong opinions on the usage of certain words. Many of you (more accurately, the three of you who read my blog) would remember my diatribe against the word awesome a while ago. I have been averse to the word cute used in any phrase or sentence for as long as I can remember. What irks me is the word is almost always used in situations where you feel like puking. For example, Awwww... that is so cute. Or worse, that is cho chweet. To me, there is very little difference between the sound of that sentence and the sound of a chalkpiece screeching on a blackboard.
But surely you must agree that there are situations which can only be expressed by using the word "cute".
Yes, I agree. However, according to me, the only legitimate use of the word cute is to describe baby elephants, as in the sentence... baby elephants are cute. Go on, imagine it. You cannot stop thinking about those calves running around, (not at all like the sober, dignified gait of the fully grown elephants) with their big ears flapping around and their trunks (only as long as their tails) stretched out (as are their tails), and in between the legs of the adult elephants now, can you?
Is it just the baby elephants? Why not puppies, kittens etc.? They are cute too, aren't they?
No, allowing the use of the word cute in those situations opens up the word for more abuse, exactly the kind that I am trying to squelch out. For example, people will use the word "cute as a puppy" or "cute as a kitten" even for situations where there is no puppies or kittens invovled. However, think about it, you can never use cute and baby elephant in one sentence unless you are talking about how cute the baby elephants are. If you dream of any success in your relationship pursuits then never ever compare the object of thine admiration to a baby elephants. As romantic as it may sound to you, believe me, the girls never seem to appreciate the "cute as a baby elephant" comparison. I am speaking from experience here so trust me on this one. Thus, the phrase "cute as a baby elephant" is never going to be abused (anyone who abuses it will face the wrath of the fairer sex and very rightly so), leaving but one legitimate choice for that combination... to describe baby elephants, which was my original point.
Don't you think you are overreacting? After all it is not the word's fault that it is being abused.
I am not entirely sure if I should pick the guns don't kill people, people kill people or the hate the sin, not the sinner stance here. Sure the word itself has legitimate uses, but people tend to abuse it. But does the word exist without its meaning? If not, then the very fact that it conveys a certain meaning/expression is what makes it a word... and, therefore, makes it abusable?
I have no idea what you just said there, but I believe that is no reason to wage a war on words.
Don't worry, I don't understand it fully either. That is why I am following the age old adage There is no problem that is so big that cannot be solved by a liberal amount of explosives. So just nuke the word out of existence and, hopefully, the problem will go away too.
You said "war on words..." and so far you only talked about cute. What are the other words?
Honey, sweetheart... phrases like... I can't live without you...
Monday, June 27, 2005
Gift suggestions... hint... hint...
You have given me caps and mugs with the friendly tux, chocolate cakes and cookies... still you feel like you need to gift me something more, but are not sure what! Well, think no more, because I will tell you what I want... You can buy me this.
Update (August 16 2005): Unfortunately, amazon.com no longer has the offer. So people who are reading this blog now... sorry, you missed out on the joke.
Update (August 16 2005): Unfortunately, amazon.com no longer has the offer. So people who are reading this blog now... sorry, you missed out on the joke.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Researchers say...
...people think better lying down that standing straight up. Wonder if I can use this article as defense when my advisor catches me napping in the office.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Much Ado About Nothing...
Benedick:
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his
behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
such shallow follies in others, become the argument
of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man
is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake,
carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man
and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his
words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many
strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with
these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not
be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise,
or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her;
fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what colour it please God.
(Act 2, Scene 3)
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his
behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
such shallow follies in others, become the argument
of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man
is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake,
carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man
and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his
words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many
strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with
these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not
be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise,
or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her;
fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what colour it please God.
(Act 2, Scene 3)
Friday, April 22, 2005
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!
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!
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
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?
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