Vivek’s Blog

Summer’s here, of course.  It still felt like Spring up until Friday with temperatures staying well under 30 degrees C.  In one fell swoop, however, all that changed.  For the past two days the weather has been more than just warm - 35 degrees and humid to be precise.  Good thing I have that AC in my room else things would’ve been a little difficult.

I’ve done nothing about my theme search all weekend.  It’s just been that kind of weekend.  But I really can’t do much anyway - I’ve basically exhasuted all sources for themes.  All I find now are the crappy ones or those that I’ve seen a million times already.  I’ll have to pick one of the good-but-not-great themes and modify it myself.  I’m also finding it quite difficult to post an entry each night, considering how I haven’t been doing anything significant outside of work and GRE prep.  I’ll give it one more week.  I might have to go back to my “whenever I want” update schedule.

So while I was looking a for a video to post here, I found a great 14-minute interview with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, right before PT’s first ever show in Australia.  Click here to see it or just watch the filler video of the day below:

WARNING:  The video is loud and Michael Stipe is fucking crazy.  Enjoy.

I started summer research today.  I didn’t do any hands-on work yet - I didn’t even take a look at any of the experimental equipment yet.  My job today was to finish reading eight research papers.  It was enthralling.  I also sat in on a group meeting and a presentation by a group member who will be presenting at an international research conference.  I guess this will be a regular feature - not daily of course!  Only when interesting things happen and/or when I have nothing else to talk about.

By the way, Computex 2008 starts in Taiwan today!  We should see some cool new gadgets coming out of there this week.

The inaugral World Science Festival is being held in NYC this week(end) and I’m really happy to see the event getting tremendous support from New Yorkers and others that came to the city just for the event.  I was fortunate enough to catch the Richard Leakey give a talk at Columbia and then I went to the street fair near NYU today.  I was being lazy and forgot to buy tickets to a couple of events that I thought were interesting - I had the schedule of events for more than a week and procrastinated.  Oh well.

But coming back to the participation - I’ve seen a crapload of people showing up to all these events and I think that’s terrific.  All the events with simple science experiments got all the kids excited and there were plenty of lectures for the grown-ups.  It’s science, bitches, and it works.

Oh God, this has got to be the most difficult question ever.  Most of the time, it comes with no context, is highly non-specific, and is usually posed by people I have just met.  There are some variations on this question.  One such variation that I simply cannot answer is about the differences in the education systems.  I did not go to high school in the US and I’m certainly not in an Indian college/university.  How the fuck am I supposed to compare systems when I’ve only been in one or the other?  Others include “How’s the life in America different from that in India?” and “Do you like India better or the US?”

Without any specifics, this comparison is nearly impossible to deal with and my standard response involves me blabbering about how it’s difficult to make a choice and that “it depends.”  It gets them off my back.  Unless they’re the super-curious type.  For these people, I need to provide a less vague response but only after I can persuade them to be more specific.

There are things that are better here, and there are things that are better in India.  For example, my ENTIRE family lives in India, the food is great, know some cool people back there, I get to watch cricket and football on TV, etc. etc.  Here, I study at a well-known university, the interwebs are good, I know even more cool people, I get to watch my favorite bands live, etc. etc.  But this is about as good an answer as I can give if you’re not specific enough with your question.

Oh man, did anyone see the Lost season 4 finale?  That was so tits!  Too bad we have to wait a few months for it to return.  BSG ends soon.  And all the other shows have wrapped-up as well.  Summer really sucks as far as TV shows go.

In conclusion, please stop asking me this question.  I mean it.  Also, I just realized that 99% of the people who ask me this question will never read this.  DAMNIT!