A rare ingenious DBLP (Bob Colwell)

For those engineers/researchers who enjoy humor, and even for the other lot who don't fathom why and how scientific humor could be invented, this DBLP is uniquely ingenious.

From Bob Colwell: Presentation Lessons from Comedians -

You’re sitting in yet another interminable conference session. Man, this chair gets more uncomfortable by the millisecond. Who’s that over there? He looks like Mike Meyers from this angle. Or maybe Mini Me. What’s that interminable droning sound? Oops, that’s the speaker going on and on about ... whatever his topic is. You can’t remember—your mind has been wandering for the past 10 minutes.

Another one from Bob Colwell : Engineering Follies -

Our confidence in our instructor having thus been substantially diminished, we moved even farther away from the experimental apparatus. Meanwhile, this intrepid grad student now demonstrated whatever is the exact opposite of an intuitive sense for how physics works: He reinserted the now-bent calibration device and told us the problem was that the shaft had not had enough weight on it—an error that he now undertook to correct by standing on it. Then he told us to turn on the power to the motor.

And, you must read *in detail* about "the guy who turned on the motor/generator during the assisted suicide incident". (Reference - Bob Colwell : Engineering Follies). Its not worth a miss. Not at all !

G for Green

Loved today's doodle on the Google web page. Hovering the mouse over and over again just for the fun of it. Check out all other Google doodles at the archive here. Also check out the latest of Google's websites - Google Green.

The drift of corporations going green / carbon-neutral is a good news by all means. Some Interesting content for this special day :

1. Some of the few business giants which are self-proclaimed carbon neutral include Google, Dell, ING Group and PepsiCo (PepsiCo? Really ?!)
2. Here is a list of carbon-neutral companies from a refreshing wordpress. Of particular interest to me is to see a gradual drift (in the recent years) in the corporate world towards monetizing on the business opportunity of " helping organizations become green ".
   

Really hope for a Greener tomorrow.

Hitler's MISCA Paper Rejection

The viral Hitler parody phenomenon strikes another hilarious note. Due credits to the original idea of creating parodies using the Original Bunker Scene from Downfall. More on it here.

Café con leche

As I sipped my morning café today accompanied by my ritualistic aimless surfing on the net, I (yet again!) stumbled upon the facebook's sky-rocketing revenues (the third time this week!):

That would put its worth at about $41 billion, more than EBay’s $39.3 billion valuation on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Facebook only trails Amazon.com Inc., worth $74.4 billion, and Google Inc., valued at $192.9 billion, among US Internet companies.[Source]

Everytime I read Facebook's success story, I am amazed at how cleverly we manoeuvered clear of any "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" era. Internet now is synonymous to opportunity, money and recognition. It has this distinct feature of linking up content and users treading these trails to find useful/interesting content. And here comes another feather in the cap of Internet - Social Networking. The magnitude of it all is what is rather a surprise (41 bn $ !!); and all so because people have found a new way of life -- "living" online?

The content creation rate on Internet is massive (I would love to be pointed to some statistics on this btw). Every new day brings tonnes of new websites/services going live; Increasingly interesting content is being created and used everyday. Internet as a platform for Knowledge sharing and Collaboration has made life much easier (and astonishingly richer for quite a few).

Other interesting Internet content that I found over the course of this week(two of the six to be precise) --

1. xtranormal : Great site for text-to-video creation. I tried a test video and other than the limited avatars/backgrouds/effects, I was impressed at what it enables a user to do -- Create your own animations!
   
2. Sintel : An impressive "open-source" graphics creation testimony.
   

This morning, my Café con Leche tastes peculiar. My Café con Leche is intimidated at sharing its much endeared place in my weekend morning breakfasts with a multi-billion entity - the Internet!

The Indian Head Wobble or "Bobble"

Much to my amusement, I found this link on the Indian Wobble or "Bobble" - what it is, and how to interpret it. Read it full, please (the bit on "Tips for Understanding the Indian Head Wobble" might be insanely insightful for a foreigner and much enjoyable for an Indian) ! Google it and you will be amazed to see how carefully it has been observed by so many people across the world.

Youtube video: how Indians say yes and no

I have personally been accused of having wobbled my head to indicate a "yes", and I, of course, denied the allegations.

Although the bobble gesture does seem to be pretty colloquial, but it was never very hard for me to understand whether it was a Yes or a No :). It's pretty useful I must say. Here's an example how -

Q : Are you telling me that you agree that Indians really wobble their heads?

A : Head Wobble

El Arte no tiene Patria

Art has no fatherland - Incribed on the walls of the Hall of Mirrors of Theatre Liceu.

A dreamy philospher went today to two beautiful concert halls at subsidised rates as its the World Music Day today - 1. Teatre Liceu and 2. Palau de la Musica Catalana (in photos). There is this peculiarly unique combination of serenity and resplendence inside a concert hall which always amazes me. Each of these concert halls has a personality and a character of its own.

The grandeur of music is totally discernible in both the concert halls. Every nook and corner has been meticulously designed to bring that complete essence of music unto you- Music which makes you dream your own world into reality; Music that lets you -sing- the song of life.

Music really is the epitome of purity and omnipresence, isnt it? It is what your soul sings; probably that's why all the religious cults have devotional music to relate to God. Particularly stark is the sound (and symbol) of Om (Aum) in Hinduism. Essentially, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this sound forms the spirit of Hinduism! Quoting Bhagwat Gita (Song of God) -

Uttering the monosyllable Aum, the eternal world of Brahman, One who departs leaving the body (at death), he attains the superior goal.

God aside, nature itself creates music all the time. My piano tutor used to tell the students that before you even know any syllable of music, you must know that to learn music, you have to learn to feel it. If you cannot feel music, you cannot learn music. Very cliché but quite fundamental as well.

a special day

Happy Birthday to that special someone who has influenced my personality in many subtle and forthright ways. Some memories remain eternal; Some lessons unforgettable. Marking this entry as a token of my appreciation for the character his acts have imbibed in me. This is the song that all the newcomers in our family (the kids mainly) have learnt by heart - thanks to my dad :). And yes, its his birthday today. All his applauds, all those dissapprovals and "recommendations", those real-life-mathematics-based-toffee puzzles :P and very tough word-dictations :P are always close to my heart.