Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Lost Dr. Suess Poem

Amazng poem :-)

It pains me to look at the increasing number of un-original / plagarized (not technically, i credit the author) / copied stuff on my blog...

Hope I have the time for a detailed blog some day soon....

I love my job, I love the pay!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, he is the best!
I love his boss and all the rest.


I love my office and its location,
I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and gray,
And piles of paper that grow each day!


I think my job is really swell,
There's nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers,
I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers


I love my computer and its software;
I hug it often though it won't care.
I love each program and every file.
I'd love them more if they worked a while.


I'm happy to be here. I am. I am.
I'm the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
I love this work, I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.


I love my job - I'll say it again -
I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who've come today,
In clean white coats to take me away!


Welcome to corporate life!!!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Academic research.. :-)

Its the time of the year when the Nobel prizes are announced. The Nobel prizes remind me of another catagory of prizes, equally nobel in their intentions but not that well know - the Ig Nobel Prizes. These are awarded for research that "first makes people laugh, and then makes them think (and in the process celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology)." This year's awardees are:

NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
PEACE PRIZE. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
BIOLOGY PRIZE. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat.
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.
PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.
LITERATURE PRIZE. David Sims of Cass Business School. London, UK, for his lovingly written study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
Do check out the site: http://improbable.com/
WHo says science is boring? And wo says all scientific research has to be serious?

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Movie time!!! Reviews, reviews and reviews...

24 hours, 3 movies.. man am I Vella... (Its the DoMS slang for a guy without any work..)

Saw Love story 2050, The incredible Hulk and Jaane tu...

And here are the reviews..
Caution: Thiese reviews may contain spoilers...

Love Story 2050: Sorry to say this, but the movie is not worth half the hype... India's first Sci fi, some newspaper called it. And a very poor one. Actually the entire movie is not a sci fi... Its only half the movie where the director takes you to his version of Mumbai in 2050. In the first half, you are in Australia where the hero meets, falls in love and woos the heroine who conveniently dies before the interval. And our hero along with his uncle and friends go to Mumbai 2050 to get her back.. (Do see the movie to understand why he chooses this particular date. The director has wasted a lot of scenes to explain this... And also, why should only I Suffer)
So Mumbai 2050... The cars (flying) there look like Premier padminis which fly... The imagination is poor, the direction un-inspired and the story cliched... The hero is poor man's Hritik. It seems so obvious that he is trying to imitate Hritik...
On the brighter side, Priyanka Chopra looks awesome in the first half. There are some scenes in the second half which are gud (especially those involving the teddy bear).
The end of the movie makes u cry... especially as the movie ticket rates are increasing by the day.
Over the movie is worth a miss...

The incredible Hulk: I saw this movie, cos I had nothing else to do. (I asked the person to give me a ticket for the next movie, whichever it is). And I was not disappointed. In fact I found it entertaining in parts. May be it is because i saw love story 2050 just 14 hours back. Nyways, most of u would be knowing the story. Watch it like you would watch those numerous other Hollywood flicks with special effects. Don't want to waste more time on this movie. Its Ok.. watch it if U don't have any other options. At least u wont feel bad at the end of it...

Jaane tu...: Lovely, fantastic, A good feel-good movie after along time. Anyone who enjoyed Socha na tha, adored Kabhi haan, kabhi naa, would love this movie. A Rathore who does not fight, a girl who cant get enough of fighting... Everyone feels that they are made for each other. Everyone except these two. And the movie shows their journey till they understand and live happily ever after. Aamir Khan's nephew is good as the rathor, Genelia as Aditi is lovable. She makes u want to jump in joy with her, cry because her cat's dead and cry when she confesses to her fiancee that she loves Jai. And their friends, who are narrating this story to an air hostess, who does not believe in love.

The direction is gud, energetic - just wht a young love story deserves. The dialogues are just what you would hear college guys speaking. The scenes between aditi and her brother are awesome. Especially the one in his room (there is only one, so u would spot it) where he explains to her that Jai is the right guy for her. The story reminds you of Segal's Doctors and the two protagonists who spend 40 years as platonic but best of friends and end up married. But Jaane tu still manages to be different. Cos its very Filmi... :-) And thats the best part. It also has the brilliance of Dil Chahata Hai in some scenes (but only some). The colours are fresh. The actors are new and hence more convincing. The music is awesome. U just cant stop yourself humming kabhi Kabhi Aditi. and of course Pappu cant dance. :-) Will definitely wait for more of Tyrewala's movies.