Gold and Beautiful

J, Ev and I were driving from Memphis to Searcy in Arkansas when Ev told me that her 80 year old father had checked our school website and the faculty page and he thought I was beautiful......... OK!!! So 3 years back I would have been thrilled if someone said that (and I would be lying if I said I wasn't pleased now!!!!). But I would have been happier if she told me that he liked my professional profile!!!! How time changes you..... I need to update my bio and add my presentations and papers to my page. Maybe add my iPhone project... Will that impress Ev's father? :-)

I had loved Rang De Basanti when I saw it a couple of years back... I am reminded of the movie again today because I saw Shashi Tharoor's tweet on twitter.com in response to someone else's tweet. This is what it said " ShashiTharoor RT @ bapoorow : Rang De Basanti was a bold honest attempt at inspiring us. (ST:terrible movie,Aamir's only bad1.Foolishly glorified violence) "... I was actually a little shocked and angry (being a perpetual Aamir Khan fan and what not). It also reminded me of someone else who had a similar opinion when I saw the movie. And my argument is the same as it was then. If you watch the movie carefully you will notice that the main characters in the movie aren't really shown as very mature individuals.... For example, Aamir Khan's character has graduated 5 years back and still doesn't seem to have grown much. He lives in that safe environment where everyone knows him and doe...

Found this interesting article on Time . Ethics, ethics, ethics!!! Should you do the right thing or not, especially when not really asked for?? As they say "The right solution is usually the hardest"!!! To censor or not to censor is the question. Let's try role playing: Google's standpoint is probably freedom of expression... rather Internet freedom of expression, no censorship. China's govt: You want to do business in our country, you gotta follow our rules. Microsoft's standpoint: Google doesn't want to do it?? Great!!! We'll do it :-) If you won't do it, we certainly will!!! Who doesn't want some more money?? I am sure Google was not really hoping their competitors to support their stand and not take advantage of the situation. Whatever the analysts and the investors might say I think Google should be proud!!!! I mean, yes we all love money, but you gotta have some principles, some strong opinion about something... If it's not privacy, I...

This morning I woke up thinking of BB, my advisor.... I dreamt last night (or maybe this morning) that we were both still working together at Tulane!!!!! Probably a good dream for him, would be good for me if I was at least his post-doc if not an Asst Proff... but definitely not good if I was his (still) his grad student... Well, I will never know!! But I woke up this morning with a very good feeling and a smile on my face.

We saw the movie right before we went to New Orleans.... An amazing movie, a must see.... I was watching the movie thinking, "Oh!! how typical", "how wrong", etc... I could relate to so many things in that movie!!!! A middle class family of 3, a smart daughter, encouraging parents who want her to go to Oxford and are spending money to see her dream come true and the moment she meets a seemingly well settled guy, (almost) everyone is fine with the girl giving up on her dreams...especially the parents!!! And I have seen this happen so many times (directly and indirectly).... It almost seems like the point of getting an education is to find a good husband or to support yourself if you don't find one!!! And this is totally different from women who give up their careers for their husband's jobs or for taking care of kids... Identifying your priorities and adjusting your goals based on current needs is understandable, especially when it's a well thought and an...

Courtesy Louis Armstrong: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans I miss it both night and day I know that it's wrong... this feeling's gettin' stronger The longer, I stay away Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines Where mockin' birds used to sing And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi...hurryin' into spring The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the air I dream... of oleanders in June...and soon I'm wishin'that you were there Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans And that's where I left my heart And there's something more...I miss the one I care for More than I miss New Orleans The city sure has a hold on you...... I visited again after 2 years. It felt as if I had never left!! Everything was still so familiar, welcoming and friendly. Of course this time I visited some places that I had never been to before. First of all we decided to skip our favorite Marriott and stay at a Bed ...

Can't believe that I have become this person!!! Someone who doesn't want classes to be canceled because of bad weather and someone who plans work for the next week (which is Spring break) before the break begins..... Obviously I used to love canceled classes because of heavy rains back home when I was in school and college. I remember the first Spring break at Tulane.... I was at Universal Studios in LA (thanks to Karthik)..... The second year I went to India for Anu's wedding. During the third year I was sitting in my lab, scratching my head over some pointers that had decided not to cooperate at all and finally I called a friend to ask for help..... Vipin says to me on the phone, "You are coding???? I am at a parade" ..That's when it dawned on me that it was Mardi Gras time!!!!! And that was the beginning of it I think!!! And then every year there was something or the other. Every time they say bad weather in Lawrenceville, I am thinking how am I going to re...

Recently, I asked my students if they had heard of linkedin.com. These students are freshmen and they all use Facebook, but they don't really use the web to their advantage. Anyways, when I asked the questions a student answered, "It is a website on which you have a profile that I found when I googled you".... I burst into laughter and so did everyone else. But later when I googled myself to see what showed up, I found that there were a couple of websites posting my information even though I hadn't created an account on them. These are the people finder kind of websites. With technologies like service oriented architecture, AJAX and what not, it's become easy to gather data from a number of websites and put it on yours.... But wait what about my privacy and legal rights??? Don't they say that data gathered for one purpose cannot be used for any other and data should not be accessible to people who don't work with it. So what has changed? How is this workin...

I have learned tons of things from many people in my life... But today I am remembering Amol. From him I learned, "Be happy, but not content". I think I need someone to push me a little more now :-). I am kinda getting comfortable with where I am, need to push myself out of my comfort zone...