Yes, Word was and still is with God.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." John 1:1-5

MS Word crashed about half a dozen times and it really put the Apostle John's quote in perspective for me. Everyone knows MS products are crap. Of course the worst among them has to be MS Word. I learned my lesson a few years ago and stopped using Word for anything longer than 2 pages. LATEX combined with WinEdt works splendidly and I have written most of my work using it. The real advantage is that it has never crashed and thus I have never had to scream in frustration.

I do have nice things to say about Notepad which I do use frequently and it is perfectly adequate for most things. Microsoft, as my friend put it, is not a software company, but a standards company. You use it not because it is good, but because everyone else uses it. For the millions out there, if the damn thing crashes, you know MS WORD is still with God. Only he knows its mysterious ways. For the rest of us it's CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Novel Use of Cap and Trade

After this morning's 9am weekly lab meeting, I think it's time to adopt the 'cap and trade' idea used for carbon credits to discussions and questions during lab meetings. The idea occurred to me as someone droned on and on for the umpteenth time with impunity. There are always people who fear too silence, especially their own, during a meeting. They feel obliged to say something no matter how irrelevant or tangential it may be to the question at hand. Then there are those who take an unbearably long time to report on their activities of the past week. The 3-minute timer in their heads never goes off.

I put forth a Cap and Trade Meeting format for all the efficient managers of meetings everywhere. Assuming a lab group of 12 people, we start off with everyone getting 3 questions and 5 minutes of talking time. If you feel obliged to say more or cannot control your natural enthusiasm then you have to buy 'talking time' from someone who would rather be quiet. The currency of exchange can be money, or even something arbitrary, or more useful (as in the case of the present author) a mug of coffee.

This balances fairness and freedom. You can't really avoid the noise polluters from polluting but it does provide an incentive to talk less and talk more sense as a consequence. The wonderful aspect is that perhaps there will be a time when no once wants to say a single word and everyone preserves their talk time. Ah! then that silence will be so golden. It will be a Zen moment.

A few questions for Indian restaurants in the US

Why no spoon?
Why no finger-bowl?
Why the drinking glass on always on the right-hand side?
and no chai and Indian-style filter coffee?

In seeking nostalgia it can often turn out to be a frustrating and disappointing experience. Food that even my dog won't eat.

And one thing that you should not to do at Indian restaurants: Don't order the cocktails. They are terrible. Given that it hard to screw them up. Better still - ask for the wine menu or help with those selections.

Will the real Guitar Hero please stand up?

This house on Main Street usually had a sign advertising guitar and music lessons. While running by the store a few days ago, I saw that the sign had been altered to read - "Guitar Hero and Rock Band lessons also offered".

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are video games that have become hugely popular. When I first saw the 'guitar', I was shocked at how toy-like it was. Of course, the Guitar Hero guitar IS a toy and not really a guitar. It's nothing but a glorified joystick that is shaped like a guitar. One of my other labmates who does play a real guitar was humbled at his attempts to display his axe-skills on Guitar hero. Guitar skills don't translate to the video game.


Perhaps, no one cares about real instruments anymore, and music teachers would rather teach anybody anything than go hungry. Learning an instrument is hard. Even to play decently it takes a few years. My own struggles with it have only reinforced the view that it requires a lot of patience, determination and discipline. Of course, once you are past the first stage, the fact that you can play can itself be a motivating thing.

While the initial motivation to learn an instrument may be to get the chicks, impress your buddies, or some TV-fueled teenage fantasy, which all seems rather silly in retrospect. The initial impetus is always public adoration, but eventually playing an instrument is mostly a solitary pleasure where you are your own audience. This solitary audience is an aspect that makes making music so liberating and relaxing. An escape into the abstract.

It seems a shame that few want to take the pains to learn how to play a real instrument. Instead of picking up a real instrument, people seem to want to pick up the guitar hero box. I hoped that perhaps this would encourage people to try the real thing. I know a guy in my lab who spent 2-3 hours in the summer getting better at guitar hero. If he had spent that time learning a real instrument, it would have paid much richer dividends.

Another One Will Bite the Dust

It was no wonder of wonders that as part of the conference schwag I was given a laptop bag. Not another laptop bag! Can organizers be so lacking in imagination that all they can think of is giving out another laptop case? Surely, they have enough of their own gathering dust on a shelf.

Link to my Photo Album

Hi,
How are you? I assume you are doing great and are enjoying the summer. I have just returned from my summer vacation and I would like to share my digital pictures with you. You know right? that I bought a digital camera a few weeks ago and I went completely berserk taking pictures. Who knows? One of them could even make it to the National Geographic!!!

Instead of my usual practice of sending you the pictures as a large .zip file, I am sending you a link to my online album (I know you don't like attachments). Don't worry! you don't miss out on anything as I have downloaded EVERY SINGLE picture. Boy! It did take a long time to upload.

A lot of them look like repeats, but you will appreciate the subtle differences. I like to be honest and I have not deleted the completely out-of-focus and badly exposed shots. By the way, since you like puzzles - all the pictures are titled IMG_(some number).jpg and have ABSOLUTELY NO comments or descriptions. I guess it would be a nice exercise for you to figure out what the heck they are all about (you already know where I went). Going through the slideshow may take a while, but you won't lose track of the fact that it's my vacation album - at least one of us is present in 90% of all the shots. I can't wait to order the prints.

Enjoy!!

- Your friend

P.S. Hope to see your online album soon.