"Happy" Blog!
A friend suggested that I should also have one of these! So here I am back to blogging. Well, it so happens that, I have quite a few friends who have spent an year in the country that has always been under consideration in most of my blogs! Quite a few of them started writing blogs and just stopped in a couple of months. The point I am trying to make here is that everybody gets on with their lives! Blogging is not as much fun when you are NOT so much frustrated with life!
Well I have ALL the reasons to NOT be frustrated today! I am going in an hour's time to have a few beers with 5 other guys all of whom are americans and discuss where to buy guns! Yeah you got it right! I am talking about guns. The reason Gulshan Kumar is no more. The reason Sanjay Dutt spent 11 months in jail. (Yeah, you got it right! I got all these wierd examples from a certain gangster who features quite prominently in most of the leading indian dailies these days!) If you still don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about the object loosely shaped on the lines of an inverted "L" with a trigger in between. (I added the "loosely" for all those perfectionists out there who are going to come back at me saying. No way a gun is like an inverted L)
So coming back to the beer gang! The first time I participated in this small party, I was baffled. How the hell can these guys talk about firing guns leave alone purchasing one! Then I realised the big american dream. "Shooting for the stars". Only they plan to do it literally. One guy was extremely disappointed with himself. "The only thing I have ever shot(\been able to shoot) was a bird." Gotta tell him, "You're getting there buddy! All the stars on Ursa Minor are just a stone's throw away!"
So apparently, you can just go to some store and buy a gun. Ok, so I will have a loaf of bread, milk and hey that's a cool gun you got there! I'll have that too!
No licence required! I am pretty sure there is a way of ordering one online too!
Ever since I got an email id of @umd.edu, I get mails like these everyday!
From: Campus Police
Subject: Crime alert
Incident: Assault
Occured: Today
Reported: Today
Location: Address
Brief Details: A whole bunch of crap followed by "the victim then heard a gun shot fired from a semi automatic/ (or worse still) automatic revolver of" such and such caliber and so and so make!
Then comes the best part!!
Prepared by: Police Major
Officer of the chief
They have actually hired a guy whose job is to send these mails everyday! My friends were once working on a business plan and wanted to give me the job of CMO(chief mailing officer). Well they were a bit too late! They already have such posts here! And they obviously don't have to do too much. Hand every other guy a gun and these people won't be out of job!
I was discussing this gun problem with a roommate of mine yesterday. His immediate reaction was, "we should have a gun each too!" And I am very sorry to say, he is absolutely right!
Ok I am off to the gun! Oops! Beer party now!
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Happy Devoli!
Yeah thats how its spelt....... Ask any native here. And if your instincts yell out, "you can't even say it (or for that matter spell it) properly", then you gotta ask yourself, CAN YOU????
Devoli is actually spelt Da choti ee ki maatra, Va aa ki maatra, La badi ee ki maatra and probably not even Diwali as most of us like to spell it as..... Ok i am not here to teach language classes. And specially not hindi language classes. Because as my good old friends point out, I don't really understand these languages..... I started with Tamil in my childhood. Now i struggle at my mother tongue. Then came hindi where I could never really get the maatras right (feel free to point out any spelling error in my devoli!) Somewhere between(or was it after) that time came english. The language which is probably responsible for my survival..... (My roommate is going to kill me for saying this) Finally, as my good old first yr. roommate likes to say, came C++. So thats FOUR languages I know (Oh! And I also learnt french sometime so that makes it 5) and not one of them I can speak well.
A wise man would say, "Be practical. Just make sure you get your thoughts across." But it gets quite difficult at times. Matlab (no thats not the mathematical computational tool I am talking about), how can you possibly converse in just one language..... Just think about it, the average indian is groomed in such a way that he is just not competent to speak in just one language.....
Yeah I know thats a pretty strong statement to make. But try to actually implement this. You'll find it quite difficult to speak in only one language without any inadvertent use of words of a different language. I am quite sure you'll succeed. But you have to make a conscious effort towards that......
Yeah thats how its spelt....... Ask any native here. And if your instincts yell out, "you can't even say it (or for that matter spell it) properly", then you gotta ask yourself, CAN YOU????
Devoli is actually spelt Da choti ee ki maatra, Va aa ki maatra, La badi ee ki maatra and probably not even Diwali as most of us like to spell it as..... Ok i am not here to teach language classes. And specially not hindi language classes. Because as my good old friends point out, I don't really understand these languages..... I started with Tamil in my childhood. Now i struggle at my mother tongue. Then came hindi where I could never really get the maatras right (feel free to point out any spelling error in my devoli!) Somewhere between(or was it after) that time came english. The language which is probably responsible for my survival..... (My roommate is going to kill me for saying this) Finally, as my good old first yr. roommate likes to say, came C++. So thats FOUR languages I know (Oh! And I also learnt french sometime so that makes it 5) and not one of them I can speak well.
A wise man would say, "Be practical. Just make sure you get your thoughts across." But it gets quite difficult at times. Matlab (no thats not the mathematical computational tool I am talking about), how can you possibly converse in just one language..... Just think about it, the average indian is groomed in such a way that he is just not competent to speak in just one language.....
Yeah I know thats a pretty strong statement to make. But try to actually implement this. You'll find it quite difficult to speak in only one language without any inadvertent use of words of a different language. I am quite sure you'll succeed. But you have to make a conscious effort towards that......
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Welcome to the machine
This song by Pink Floyd inspired me so much that I decided to take up a career in research very much against the whims and fancies of like minded, peace loving people of my time. No no, this is not another one of my "Life sucks" posts where I am complaining about pretty much everything in life (although that is precisely my state of mind right now). Interestingly the sympathies of the most unexpected of people arose after my previous post. "Hang on Right there man! You are going to start enjoying soon!" Anyway I seem to be digressing from the point as usual.... The intention of this post was originally to share one of the most bewildering aspects of the ambitions of this world and its pupils.
The post is named "welcome to the machine". So you guessed it right, it has everything to do with "the machine". The CNC machine to be precise. For the uninitiated a Computer Numerical Control machine which one of my good friends wisely calls the hole drilling machine. Hole drilling! Seems to be one of the simlest, most innocent things to do! I mean after all what could it possibly involve! Imagine driving a nail into the wall to hang a painting! To a level headed bloke with reasonable amount of sense, having an elaborate machinery for this simple task would sound quite foolish.
The trouble starts when people want to "automate" the process of driving the nail into the wall! Now all those machinery lovers, please don't go overboard and start lamenting about how it simplifies life and makes things faster. I mean for heaven's sake get off your ass and get yourself a hammer!
Inspite of what I may appear to be saying, I am quite ok with the automation as long as it makes me work less. But as you may rightly have guessed, it is never so! That's because automation, more often than not, relies on this most unreliable piece of machinery invented by man called the COMPUTER! Its sometimes quite scary that these things can do things they were never supposed to.
When the ABACUS was invented all it could do was addition and subtraction. I sometimes sincerely wish that things never got more complicated. Because these things went on to control, as my good friend likes to call it, hole drilling.
Well so here is what prompted me to say all these unpleasant things about the one thing that most of us can't imagine a life without! This CNC machine in our lab is controlled by this, yeah you guessed it right, computer! So as it is supposed to do(I have started believing so), it shuts itself down quite unexpectedly quite often. Obviously, once this thing shuts down, it becomes almost impossible for a reasonably well educated person to bring it back to the state it was BEFORE it decided to switch itself off so that it can continue to serve this "hole drilling" machine. So it was decided to connect an "Uninterrupted" Power supply (or the UPS as some would like to call it) to this darned thing! That looked like a pretty simple job to me. Even I could handle that!! But I was terribly mistaken! As soon as this computer started receiving power through the UPS the computer decides to let out an explosion (or as a few moderated people like to call it, a "pop sound") and ironically, shut itself down forever. Quite amusing isn't it? Well trust me, it was not! When I told my advisor about this, his mouth was literally left wide open!!!!! Then he starts frantically running up and down the hallway looking for people who would know how to fix a "computer". As was expected, each and every soul in that building knew how to use a computer! But it took us an hour and a half to find someone who could FIX one! Finally this computer guy says that probably the power supply, the motherboard and the motion cards on the computer conked off. I had to fight my instincts which were yelling out asking what the hell is left if these things conk off! And if all the things that he said DID really conk off, it meant an expenditure of about 25000$ for my advisor. At this point, I had already started wishing that my advisor decides to withdraw his restraining order and yell at me."How the hell do you manage to screw up every single time." or more optimistically, "Its alright! It was probably not your fault." But he decided against both. Finally this guy comes down to the lab and starts inspecting around and realizes that the computer that served that machine was a different one from what he had dealt with earlier. I was left wondering why man decided to go ahead and create MORE than one type of the same machinery that he did not himself understand! After about 3 hrs of deliberation by the end of which I was quite close to a nevous breakdown, it was discovered that the power supply unit had conked off. I knew that!!! That's where the explosion came from! After class XII I had decided to give up chemistry. And rightly so, because you could never reach an answer in that subject. You could only JUSTIFY the answer that you came to know was correct. I really wish I had realised this about computers too back then! Because with each passing day, this notion of mine is being strengthened by unknown external and internal forces.
This song by Pink Floyd inspired me so much that I decided to take up a career in research very much against the whims and fancies of like minded, peace loving people of my time. No no, this is not another one of my "Life sucks" posts where I am complaining about pretty much everything in life (although that is precisely my state of mind right now). Interestingly the sympathies of the most unexpected of people arose after my previous post. "Hang on Right there man! You are going to start enjoying soon!" Anyway I seem to be digressing from the point as usual.... The intention of this post was originally to share one of the most bewildering aspects of the ambitions of this world and its pupils.
The post is named "welcome to the machine". So you guessed it right, it has everything to do with "the machine". The CNC machine to be precise. For the uninitiated a Computer Numerical Control machine which one of my good friends wisely calls the hole drilling machine. Hole drilling! Seems to be one of the simlest, most innocent things to do! I mean after all what could it possibly involve! Imagine driving a nail into the wall to hang a painting! To a level headed bloke with reasonable amount of sense, having an elaborate machinery for this simple task would sound quite foolish.
The trouble starts when people want to "automate" the process of driving the nail into the wall! Now all those machinery lovers, please don't go overboard and start lamenting about how it simplifies life and makes things faster. I mean for heaven's sake get off your ass and get yourself a hammer!
Inspite of what I may appear to be saying, I am quite ok with the automation as long as it makes me work less. But as you may rightly have guessed, it is never so! That's because automation, more often than not, relies on this most unreliable piece of machinery invented by man called the COMPUTER! Its sometimes quite scary that these things can do things they were never supposed to.
When the ABACUS was invented all it could do was addition and subtraction. I sometimes sincerely wish that things never got more complicated. Because these things went on to control, as my good friend likes to call it, hole drilling.
Well so here is what prompted me to say all these unpleasant things about the one thing that most of us can't imagine a life without! This CNC machine in our lab is controlled by this, yeah you guessed it right, computer! So as it is supposed to do(I have started believing so), it shuts itself down quite unexpectedly quite often. Obviously, once this thing shuts down, it becomes almost impossible for a reasonably well educated person to bring it back to the state it was BEFORE it decided to switch itself off so that it can continue to serve this "hole drilling" machine. So it was decided to connect an "Uninterrupted" Power supply (or the UPS as some would like to call it) to this darned thing! That looked like a pretty simple job to me. Even I could handle that!! But I was terribly mistaken! As soon as this computer started receiving power through the UPS the computer decides to let out an explosion (or as a few moderated people like to call it, a "pop sound") and ironically, shut itself down forever. Quite amusing isn't it? Well trust me, it was not! When I told my advisor about this, his mouth was literally left wide open!!!!! Then he starts frantically running up and down the hallway looking for people who would know how to fix a "computer". As was expected, each and every soul in that building knew how to use a computer! But it took us an hour and a half to find someone who could FIX one! Finally this computer guy says that probably the power supply, the motherboard and the motion cards on the computer conked off. I had to fight my instincts which were yelling out asking what the hell is left if these things conk off! And if all the things that he said DID really conk off, it meant an expenditure of about 25000$ for my advisor. At this point, I had already started wishing that my advisor decides to withdraw his restraining order and yell at me."How the hell do you manage to screw up every single time." or more optimistically, "Its alright! It was probably not your fault." But he decided against both. Finally this guy comes down to the lab and starts inspecting around and realizes that the computer that served that machine was a different one from what he had dealt with earlier. I was left wondering why man decided to go ahead and create MORE than one type of the same machinery that he did not himself understand! After about 3 hrs of deliberation by the end of which I was quite close to a nevous breakdown, it was discovered that the power supply unit had conked off. I knew that!!! That's where the explosion came from! After class XII I had decided to give up chemistry. And rightly so, because you could never reach an answer in that subject. You could only JUSTIFY the answer that you came to know was correct. I really wish I had realised this about computers too back then! Because with each passing day, this notion of mine is being strengthened by unknown external and internal forces.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
This one's mine. Lets just begin by saying I don't think I will have enough time to keep posting here every now and then given the amount of work I am gonna be given over the next..... (three years is it??) Been told that i would "hopefully" stick around for 3 yrs here. Which could mean two things a) "You won't be able to tolerate this place for 3 full yrs dude." b) "If you don't wrap up your job within 3 yrs, Phd or not, you're gonna be kicked out....... "
Given the current sequence of events, both scenarios are quite appealing to this fresh out of 5th year Dual Degree graduate, from IIT Bombay. "This country works on networking man! Build your contacts. Talk to people. Tell them about your work. Get to know about theirs" Yeah Right!
Anyway that's just the research here. Living here.... O boy! I wonder why people care to come all the way from multicolored, multivarious(that's probably not even a word) places like india to the monotony of this country. They call it the land of the big apple. (ok ok I know its just New York) But dude, you are in for a big shock! All apples here are of the same size. Wonder how they figured out which apple is bigger. Its as if they measure out each apple by a calliper before plucking it from the tree. Oh no they don't do that! They PREDICT the size of the apple that would grow on the tree before the seeds are planted. And its not just apples, its cabbages, cauliflower, onions, potatoes and truck loads of other crap.
Nothing absolutely NOTHING is left to the imagination! They predict a Hurricane Katrina. And when it hit New Orleans, they are like, hey! That shouldn't have happenned. How the hell did that go wrong. And spend a month and a few billion dollars figuring that "where did the prediction go wrong" No wonder they have very few people unemployed here.
You're not a meat eater? The first thing you gotta do is kick yourself hard. Then time for introspection. Ask yourself, what is meat? I went to one of the fast food outlets here and said, tell me what you have that has NO meat and I don't care what it is, I'll have that. He was kind enough to say. "We have 4 dishes that don't have meat. You can choose from any of these. This is lettuce, onion, chicken. No meat. This is mushroom, potatoes and salmon. No meat. This is mushroom, chicken and mozarella. No meat. This is onion and fish. No meat." I hear him and stare at him. Now you tell me. What the hell do I say? I told him I don't eat meat. He understood perfectly. I promised him that I would eat whatever he gave me that doesn't have meat. He gave me FOUR options! I couldn't possibly ask for more than that. Finally I had to break my promise, say thank you very much and go hungry.
I am trying to come up with a reasonable way of expressing myself now. I learnt in IIT to not be fussy about things. I only wish I had learnt that better. For the next time, I plan to say I wan't something that has no meat, no chicken, no fish. But if this guy comes up with some wierd food item like say pipedbrocolli or something, you could only imagine what I would do......... If you are a vegetarian comitting suicide is very simple. Just stop cooking!!
We used to end 4th year valfi profiles with, "All said and done, he is a very nice guy. Extremely helpful. Very friendly. Golden heart" and all that crap. I am going to take off from that one here and just say, this is a good experience. Makes you want to not come back here ever again!
Given the current sequence of events, both scenarios are quite appealing to this fresh out of 5th year Dual Degree graduate, from IIT Bombay. "This country works on networking man! Build your contacts. Talk to people. Tell them about your work. Get to know about theirs" Yeah Right!
Anyway that's just the research here. Living here.... O boy! I wonder why people care to come all the way from multicolored, multivarious(that's probably not even a word) places like india to the monotony of this country. They call it the land of the big apple. (ok ok I know its just New York) But dude, you are in for a big shock! All apples here are of the same size. Wonder how they figured out which apple is bigger. Its as if they measure out each apple by a calliper before plucking it from the tree. Oh no they don't do that! They PREDICT the size of the apple that would grow on the tree before the seeds are planted. And its not just apples, its cabbages, cauliflower, onions, potatoes and truck loads of other crap.
Nothing absolutely NOTHING is left to the imagination! They predict a Hurricane Katrina. And when it hit New Orleans, they are like, hey! That shouldn't have happenned. How the hell did that go wrong. And spend a month and a few billion dollars figuring that "where did the prediction go wrong" No wonder they have very few people unemployed here.
You're not a meat eater? The first thing you gotta do is kick yourself hard. Then time for introspection. Ask yourself, what is meat? I went to one of the fast food outlets here and said, tell me what you have that has NO meat and I don't care what it is, I'll have that. He was kind enough to say. "We have 4 dishes that don't have meat. You can choose from any of these. This is lettuce, onion, chicken. No meat. This is mushroom, potatoes and salmon. No meat. This is mushroom, chicken and mozarella. No meat. This is onion and fish. No meat." I hear him and stare at him. Now you tell me. What the hell do I say? I told him I don't eat meat. He understood perfectly. I promised him that I would eat whatever he gave me that doesn't have meat. He gave me FOUR options! I couldn't possibly ask for more than that. Finally I had to break my promise, say thank you very much and go hungry.
I am trying to come up with a reasonable way of expressing myself now. I learnt in IIT to not be fussy about things. I only wish I had learnt that better. For the next time, I plan to say I wan't something that has no meat, no chicken, no fish. But if this guy comes up with some wierd food item like say pipedbrocolli or something, you could only imagine what I would do......... If you are a vegetarian comitting suicide is very simple. Just stop cooking!!
We used to end 4th year valfi profiles with, "All said and done, he is a very nice guy. Extremely helpful. Very friendly. Golden heart" and all that crap. I am going to take off from that one here and just say, this is a good experience. Makes you want to not come back here ever again!
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