Monday, February 27, 2006

Because...

You....It's you, and none in the whole world....., but you...and only you.....

you are my breath, my soul, my life.....you are my energy, my space, my time.....you are special....you are important.....always....

you gave me the glory...the importance....you gave me my value.....my inspiration....you made me famous....you made me.....myself

And now, who will care for you? Who will look at you, with the same affection I used to? Who will wake up in the morning thinking of you? Whose fingers will tremble for just a gentle touch of you? And who will keep you dancing and singing throughout the day? In the lab, in the corridors, on the sea shore, in the canteen at every meal, who will fumble for you?

I will miss you...and I know, so will you....we are made for each other.....perhaps, I never said this to you...but said it all the time for you.....you must have realised through our interactions......

I........I love you.........I love you, my synthesizer!

Because.......

On stage and always, you are important

Fun...Revisited

What is the recipe for re-celebrating your childhood? I can think of two ways only. One is to hire a time machine and turn the knobs or the other, reunite with the kids around.

I don't know the time machine vendor, if any. But, recently I had a chance to share a few Kodak moments with my nephews (twins of my cousin).

A picture is worth 1000 words. Have a look at
this video
.
(you might need to update for DivX codecs)

Friday, February 24, 2006

Look, who's thinking

It is really funny (if it is true, of course), that your aptitude decides your career and hence your background and that in turn sets your attitude. And if it is so, one shouldn't worry at all, since your aptitude is god-given (at least, that is what they say) and so is your attitude (by induction). Whatever it may lead to..... for sure, it does affect your thinking .

When I put forward the proposal, of making a movie on my institute, in front of my friends, some three months back, everybody was happy and full of queries.
What will be the angle?.........the beloved C.A. (Commercial Artist)...........What are we suppose to show? Will it be campus and facilities at your institute? .......she is an architect.......who will bear the expenses? Logistics?? ........he is doing MBA..........Then there was one, most of what she said I couldn't understand.......she is into IT (and hence good at virtual thinking)........when asked the other, what she would like to do in particular, she didn't have a concrete answer for.........she is an M.Sc.-statistics student...........and the one, who had answer to every question (irrespective of its validity)........was me, a researcher

But, this was just the beginning. The real fun came, when we started developing on the script. Mr. CA wanted various corridors in the institute to represent the mental state of our main character, while he is passing through. Miss Architect wanted what is called walkthroughs of the character throughout the building. The main character was an animated mouse taking journey to the institute for lady IT. And, his highness MBA just said one word everytime: good (or) naah.

Finally we came up with a nice script....too nice to be realistic......but, that is what we call advertising.......OR, think of a script which appears closer to reality: our representative wakes up sometime around 1100 hrs and rushes to the canteen to see the closed board. frustrated with it, enters the lab. The first thing he does is telnet blah blah....next comes blogspot....next orkut.....finds a new masala......scraps for sometime.....then, with great satisfaction of being the smartest at the ongoing excitement there, turns to his experiment......a sudden jerk in the stomach comes exactly then: at 1230 hrs........a colonnade refreshment....followed by a departmental seminar, which brings a free cup of tea with some slices of cake......sea shore digressions, cricket ground, badminton court excursions.......dinner table....tv room/regal movies.....rajan canteen colloquiums......hostel gossips....and bed time! And some work meanwhile tondi lavayla. Sounds real...but, is the world out there prepared for this truth? Afterall, one's image is in your thinking...and they think we are doing great!

So, coming back to thinking....we are hopeful...Now, that we have covered most of the interesting sites here, interviewed for most of the characters in the script, visited many labs.....met many new people....perhaps, we will learn how various sub-groups among us, scientists, think differently!

What do you think?

Thursday, February 16, 2006

from chepo's mouth

The recent most happening at the institute, which is also the most talked about event here, is CHEPO 6. The actual name was CHEP 06, a rather boring, typical of conferences. But, thanks to our institute designer for his aesthetic personal touch, making it a lot bubbly.

According to one, from the faculty here, the misnomer chepo , which should correctly be pronounced as cheapo, is the result of mere jealousy. Looking at the extravagant delicious food being served all the time, it may be supported a bit, but I think I enjoy this nomenclature for one thing: we here, are dealing with the most advanced computational possibilities of future - a revolutionary dream, with the bottom line all the time being its spread amongst general people and wider and transparent connectivity. This is possible only if it is a cheap (commercially) product. Hence, the name: che(a)po.

One more reason, why one can call it cheapo, is our cheap management skills. Despite this, if the conference went well, then the credit should go to the diligence of the volunteers and patience of the organizers. We always chose the longest path of success, but ultimately you succeeded. Three cheers to all of you!

I can't resist giving yet another evidence for the name cheapo and that is our (and this corresponds to all of us, not just CHEP) social awareness . India is facing a big electric power production crisis. Except Mumbai, almost everywhere we observe load-shading: 12 hrs/day in rural and 5 1/2 hrs/day in suburban areas. Mumbai being the commercial capital of India, is excluded from this routine. But that has made us carefree. Or why would one put flood lights focusing trees upwards during the dinner on the insti. lawn, just for decoration purpose? (And it is not just one or two, but a whole bunch of them scattered around the institute garden!!) Why will somebody not care for switching the fans and tubes off while leaving his room empty? This is a truly cheap behaviour, I feel.

And, now something which we don't deserve the name for, but the institute administration is imposing on us. The incidence is the visit by our honorable president. True, it is a part of chep 06. But, the institute taking care of the organizations, made us remove all our posters and scientific material from the auditorium premises and transformed the auditorium into a marriage hall! One would not believe me, if I say Rs. 25,000/- were spent just on the flowers! Isn't it a cheap business? We are a scientific research institute. Govt. funds us heavily for doing research. Would president be happy to see all flowers but no scientific material in the atmosphere of a research institute? Will he be happy to see all non-scientific staff, including spouses of the faculty at the cost of no student in the hall? Postdocs and mathematics students didn't even get a mail for passes! Cheap, cheap.....very cheap!

But, otherwise, cheapo 6 was not a cheap business at all! Considering the budgets of all the conferences held here, I heard that this was the most heavily funded one. I don't have any knowledge of the details, but the treatment was royal! The quality of talks, information coverage and scientific efforts involved at the core of the coference was awsome. I am very much hopeful for this conference blossoming into a great success....a milestone in the field of computation......the reason, it was for!......and I think this is the message one should take home! After all Mistakes are the secret of success

Congrats!

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The sound of breathing

To the One who knows it,

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday, February 06, 2006

Right? Or left??

What do you do with a vector? First thing, you add them, vectorially. And then? ....simple! you multiply them.....and then you realise there are actually two ways to do so! One is scalar product, while the other is vector product.

This is the way a typical 12th standard class goes in. I always wondered, why the hell are there two ways? From where did they come from? What was the clue?......Even after a laborious work at length, I couldn't get a clue.

It was only when the introduction to tensor came in my way, I realised that the vector product is indeed not a simple vector. It is dual of some anti..........blah blah!

The actual point I learned was " The direction of the vector, the (vector) product of two vectors, is merely a convention"......consequence of what is called as right handed co-ordinate system.

And we are so used to it.......when you twist the screw in the wall, when you close the running water tap and also when you open your medicine bottle or even when you key your watch! Its all right handed systems.

As far as you are a physicists or an engineer it is just logical. But what if you are a biologists?

Consider, a long flat sheet hold it at one end with your left hand and start twisting with your right hand the most natural way (i.e. clockwise). The thing which you get is a right handed spiral, a model for a right handed DNA in biology. But, have a closer look at it and you will realise, that it is a left handed screw one according to the physiscists' definition.

Amazing realisation! isn't it?