Migrating my blog to posterous

I have signed up for posterous for a while now, but today I am finally migrating my blogs (non-stop nonsense and roadtalk) to it fully! 

I have been really impressed with the site and its features (autoposting, imports, email blogging to name a few), and personally think its way ahead of the 

traditional blogging platforms.

 

Hopefully, this would give me the impetus back to blogging. Its almost been an year!!

P.S: If you have subscribed/followed my earlier blogs, please update your rss-feeds/bookmarks ! I added a feed-burner for your convenience :)

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Sent from my Gmail :)

Posted via email from Vinod's posterous

Of Gods Ghosts and Galileo

What kind of wife would you like? It all started with this innocuous question and then spiraled into an animated and sometimes passionate discussion about science, philosophy, math, gods, ghosts, religion and well Galileo too...

In the interest of keeping the discussion un-biased and to not give my viewpoint an unfair advantage, I won't link names with viewpoints. Suffices to say it involves me and a couple of my roomies. I will also interweave my views that were not necessarily discussed then, but hopefully you can't differentiate :) The I hereafter corresponds to different persons at different points of time.

So, our discussion about the wives wasn't terribly interesting so lets cut directly to the next one. Do you believe in Ghosts?, asked one. Of course not, said the other two. Why not? Well because there is no proof. Well, there are lot of people who believe that they saw ghosts...are they wrong? But, usually these stories almost always come from villages where there is lot of illiteracy...maybe, it has something to do with people attributing things that they couldn't explain with science to ghosts. Well, I have a story to tell. There was once this woman I met who is supposed to have higher powers. I met her at a friend's place and didn't believe her at first. I asked her if she can tell whether the front gate of my house is open now? My house was in a different city altogether that this woman had no clue about and I never met her before. At that time of the day it was usually open. But, she said it was closed. I called home and found out that it was closed just that day because of some work! I also told her I wanted to write civil services exam and be an IAS (Indian Administrative Service). She said I wouldn't become one and said I would go to foreign shores for higher studies! And here I am...how do you explain that? Well, may be the gate was just a coincidence and you might have been subconsciously influenced by her to not try for civil services and instead came here. Well then, do you believe in God?.....

God is a total farce. There are lot of wars and chaos in the name of God. It has brought more harm than good in this world. True, but may be its because people forgot the essence of why God came into being and are just following some religious zealots' interpretation of religion. I would like to think God as a belief that has been instilled by some of the intelligent few back in time for the masses to do good. Atleast if there is a fear that doing wrong leads to horrible things and doing good deeds gets you to a nice place after death, there is an incentive to be good. But, I hate both theists and atheists who try to wear their beliefs on their sleeves. Respect every one's believes as long as it doesn't hurt you. Atheism is a belief like theism after all. They are not on any high moral ground. So, looks like you believe in God? Well, I believe in the essence. What about you? I still don't because there is no proof about it..I will only believe if science can prove it? What is science?

Anything that has a logical explanation to the effect is what I consider as science? But how do you define logic? What makes you think the logic is correct? Well, anything that has a rigorous mathematical proof behind it, step by step from the smallest possible thing to the effect is science. Everything can be explained by math! What makes you think mathematics is such an indisputable theory? Why do you think whatever math has proof for is correct? Math might be wrong after all. Well there are lot of great scientists who have proved great results that we still believe in...like gravitational force. But, do you agree that it might be proven wrong tomorrow? Till Galileo proved that Sun was the center of the universe, people believed otherwise for eons of time. May be in next hundred years, people will prove that Sun is not the center of the universe after all. I don't believe it! Why not!? Well, he showed it with telescope..it can't be wrong. What makes you think the telescope is right? May be the theory of astronomy is itself wrong. But its based on fundamental properties of light...people have proven it for centuries based on solid math that it is true. But, you agree that there are lot of theorems that have been proven wrong after centuries. What makes you think the fundamentals aren't wrong....Math is after all a theory based on a set of axioms..may be the axioms are wrong! There are other theories like philosophy that are not based on proofs but have different conclusions about things..for eg: God. But, I don't believe in philosophy? Why not? They don't have any proof of what they say? Well, they do but its not based on math..they have their own set of axioms. Well, when there are multiple theories, I tend to believe in one that is based on the least number of axioms because it is the strongest. But, do you know what axioms is philosophy is based on? No! Even so, least number of is a concept of math..you can't use it disprove another theory! Now you are being ridiculous...! You are saying everything we believed in so far is wrong. No, you are being passionate! I just think you need to keep an open mind that what you believe as true might be proven as wrong tomorrow. Science is just a theory like any other. Just because science can't explain God/Ghosts doesn't mean they don't exist. May be they do, science hasn't caught up yet! Looks like atleast one of you now believes in Gods and Ghosts :)

So, what's the take away. Damn women..they are the cause of all the chaos in the world. That's how this discussion started. I think we all agree on that one :))

Princeton Junction, United and Murphy's Law

...'If something can go wrong...It always will'. This version of Murphy's law aptly applies to the sequence of events transpired during the past couple of days. It all started when I went to NYC (I was visiting my sis' family for a week) this saturday to meetup with few friends. It was snowing in the city (which I liked btw) and I wished I had a few more layers on me. Coming from California, we never expect how chilly the weather can be :) I was seeing BS after a gap of more than 2 yrs and so it was nice catching up and talking about old friends from school. Over the must-try-NYC-local- pizza I came to know that Sathish , another school friend, recently moved to NYC and so we called him up to meet us. But, he couldn't make it because the snow was too bad for him to drive from uptown to Times Square.

We met Rajesh and Sharad (both from UCSB...visiting NYC the same week!) at Tussads and bade good byes to BS and Sharad. After eating at an Ethiopian restaurant and checking out live music of a local band at a pub, we debated whether to go to a night club or head back home. And this is where Murphy springs into action.

First my iphone decided to die on me. The Jesus phone is amazing at a lot of things but battery life is not one of them. Since the last train from NYC to New Jersey is at 11:14 (isn't it ridiculous for a saturday night?) , I decided to crash at the hotel where Raj was staying for the night. Since I only remember munni's (sis) landline number by-heart and she was not at home, I took Raj's phone and left a voice mail on Vicky's (bro in Seattle) phone to pass on the message to munni that I won't be back home tonight. But at 10:40, since Raj wasn't in the mood we decided to skip club and head back home. I decided I would rather go home than crash at Raj's place and it was already 10:45! Anyway, we ran to the nearest sub and caught a train to Penn Station. By the time I reached the track, huffing and puffing, the train was already boarding! So, I asked Raj to email vicky (since he wasn't picking up his phone) and tell him that I am actually going home and that munni should pick me up at Princeton Junction. Now, all I wished was that vicky is going to check his email and call on munni's mobile and have me picked up.

But...when I reached Princeton, it was 12:30 and there was no one. The platform was dead empty except for a few ghostly souls and it was freezing. The waiting room was closed, so I didnt even have a warm place to hide. The only option was the pay-phone but I didn't have any change on me! Luckily one of the old ladies had quite some change and I exchanged it with a dollar note. Now, for some odd reason the damn phone wouldnt connect my calls to either Vicky or munni's landline (I thot they would have reached home by now) and so I called up the operator and gave my credit card number. I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard vicky's voice...I am not going to freeze to death here :)) Since I didnt have more change, I asked him to conference call munni's mobile and came to know that they were still at the party and would take 40 min to reach me!! No way,...so vicky looked up a NJ cab service online and put them through on the conference call. Fortunately, they had a cab somewhere near the station and hence I was on my way home.

During the ride, the curious cabbie wanted to know whether its true that if you take a girl to the Taj Mahal then she would fall in love with you. Not so easy bro. I said I never tried, so I didn't know. But we agreed its like the Eiffel Tower craze and just cheesy. After the cabbie dropped me off, the security code (munni gave me over the conf call) for entering the house didn't seem to work. I tried like 10 times and I thought I am going to freeze right here instead of the station. And there weren't any pay phones nearby either :) Just to make sure, I tried another door and as luck had it that door was open (it wasn't supposed to be..but earlier in the day I actually forgot locking it!). Wow..this was amazing...I entered the house and was glad I didnt trigger any security alarms.

Sunday evening. Time to leave to SB. As dumb as it sounds, I actually forgot to put my bag in the trunk of the car and realized it only after reaching the airport. Since there was no time to go back, we debated whether to intentionally miss the flight and weave a story to the United airline staff about traffic jam and how I missed the flight and get rescheduled to next day. But, I was wary of this option, because I already had an experience flying Standby (if you remember). So, I decided to go ahead and travel empty handed and have my luggage shipped next day. Reaching home, I realized my keybunch (along with my lappy and phone charger) was in my bag and so my house is locked! I slept at Ponnuru's place for the night and got a duplicate key from the apt office. Complying with the tradition, my car didn't want to start and needed a jumpstart . So now....I am using duplicate keys for my house and the lab...my phone is going to die soon...no laptop till my luggage is delivered on friday...car doesn't want to start...but hey it was a fun trip :)

The Dark Night

He swerved the car into the parking lot. The black shade of the car seemed to disappear into the shadows. It was dark outside. He stepped down from the car and looked around. It was deserted as he anticipated. He would have looked odd in this place, if there were people around. But there were none. Flickers of light in the nearby buildings told him all were still not asleep. May be its not time yet. He hesitated a moment.

Tiny droplets of sweat were beginning to break out on his forhead. He was slightly nervous. He held on to the cigarette, hoping it would calm him down. The ambers fell on his shoes like tiny snow flakes. Snow flakes...they brought back memories. It was a different time, a different place, a different life. How did he become the one he is today. He never thought capable of doing what he was going to do today. But, he had to do it. There was no other way. It was his calling. The phone call he got today gave him clear instructions. He was the chosen one!

He took a last puff and threw the cigarette away. He opened the boot and got the equipment out. It was not heavy. He wondered if it was really capable of doing what he was told it would do. He closed the boot, locked the car and began to haul the equipment to its destination. There was a military efficiency about how he did things. But, he was never in the military. His background and training were completely different. The training was excruciating. But he was glad, it was over and he could endure it. Not many did. He touched his back and a searing pain went through his spine, as if reminding him. The wound was fresh.

He setup the equipment in the abandoned ground. He looked at his watch. It was time, but he still didn't get the signal. Did something go wrong? He couldn't call back because he was never given a number. The sweat began to wet his side burns. He wished he could go back to his car and get another cigarette. But, he couldn't leave the equipment. He looked at the buildings...the flickers were gone, Everyone was asleep. He was relieved. May be it was better this way, when people were sleeping. He had principles. "Why do I still cling on to principles?After all...", his thoughts were cut off as his phone vibrated with an incoming text message. He got the code. He carefully punched it in the equipment. He let a deep sigh and pressed 'Enter'. It started transmitting...

Summer of '09

This is the low down on my summer this year. I know a few of you have been waiting for it and I am sorry its a little late than I anticipated. Anyhoo, where do I start. From my pre to previous post you might remember that I finally reached Mountain View (the bay!) on the 23rd June after going through a bunch of twists and turns.

So, this summer I was interning with Bosch Research Labs, Palo Alto on a vehicular networking project. I didn't realize it was aGerman company and moreover wasn't expecting more than a couple of Germans. But guess what, you should expect a lot of Germans (90%) if its a German company...not that its a bad thing :) Infact, I made quite a few good friends there and learnt a few things about them. They are hard workers...some to the brink of not having a life :) They are actually shy (and I thought Indians were the only kings of shyness). They are smooth talkers; don't get carried away by their less than mellifluous, throat wrenching baritone :)). Most of them are very friendly. I really enjoyed our backyard fountain lunches, bbqs and some dinners and kicking the ass of Volkswagen in our annual soccer match!. I even tried learning some German, as I did in Austria back in 2005. But, all I remember is "Arschloch", which is exactly what you think it is :).

Other than work, bay area was awesome for a lot of things. I would highly recommend it esp if you haven't been to the west coast before. The options for food, sight seeing, movies etc etc are endless. I haven't seen as many movies in the last 2 years as I have seen this summer, in theaters! And Its coming from me, who usually likes going to the movies. Food...yumm...I can't begin to describe it. I haven't eaten out this much, again. Part of the reason being, all my house mates were google interns where they get free food day in day out. So, I was the only one in the house cooking and I did any respectable guy would do. Stopped cooking and started eating out :) (j/k...I actually like coooking). The new cuisines I tried this time were Ethiopian, Mongolian and Japanese (I had sushi once before). Oh, and bay is the place if you like great Indian food!! Tons of great restaurants serving authentic biryani, kabab,mmmmm. Ok ok, lets stop salivating.

I made a ton of trips again. And, I usually travel a bit. I had quite a few of my ugrad friends here (LA, Vsky, MC, Archit) in the bay ,working and studying. It was great to catch up and hang out with them. Also, I had good roomates this summer (Anindya, Rajesh and Rip). Susmit and Kamal were in the bay too. KJ came for job hunting and stayed at our place for 10 days. All this meant, I always had company for trips. Lets see what I did...

I went to Seattle for attending SigComm, which was great. I really loved the ambience of the city, esp the downtown. Luckily summer is the only best time there...it rains 9 months! I stayed at Vicky's place (bro) and we did the usual touristy stuff and played tennis. Also, met KK and went for a beach, which was a joke. Sigcomm was also great, being a top conference and all, and it was good to finally see and meet the big shots in your field after reading their papers for so long. There was a cruise again...and all in all it felt like Vancouver all over again. Only this time, I didn't meet any cute girls :))

I did a good number of hikes too, which was awesome. I am begining to get addicted to outdoorsy thingies. Oh, we went to skydiving too which was an experience in itself. Its the most scariest thing I have done in my life so far, though it wasn't that scary (Anindya might disagree :P). We went to Napa Valley for wine tasting and scenic driving which was pretty interesting too. First time, I had 4 glasses of wine in my life (still a kid..I know). Mom and dad visited me for a few days (they were staying at Sis place in NJ) and I just had a weekend to show them the beauty of CA. Now, you have to understand that they were just coming after visiting Vicky in Seattle and getting impressed by the huge buildings of Microsoft and their huge parties. So, to impress them was a daunting task. So, I started them off with a good Indian restaurant which they really liked and felt at home (I know the right buttons :)). Then, I drove 300 odd miles over 2 days covering Monterey bay, Half moon bay, Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Needless to say they were pleased. Yay.

Oh this is getting longer than I expected. I will cut it here. I will do a part 2 if enough people are interested and/or I have the mood. And just to give you a preview, it includes my first ever camping experience, alcatraz trip, google as our rec-cen etc etc :))

Is it Just Me...

1. looking at people in nearby cars during red lights
2. prefer rolling down the windows to A/C
   
3. wondered why hot chicks always go out with jerks
4. stood in a corner in the club because you just can't dance with anyone
5. stared at the mirror in an empty restroom until someone walked in
6. you were lost so many times that there is no place left to be lost
7. wished you could turn the clock back
8. wished you could read her mind
9. hoped people were as interested in taking your pic as you are in theirs
10. thought life was unfair
11. wished things were more logical
12. wanted to grow up as fast as you can, when you were a kid...not sure now
13. missed childhood because the laughs were pure...people were nice...days under the sun and nights full of fun
14. never understood why your mom said you were a kid for some things and an adult for other
15. working all night gave you a high that nothing else ever did
    

...is it just me or any of these apply to you too? if yes, just write which numbers..so that I know I am not alone..or weird :)

Standby

None of my long trips are without twists. It all started during my trip to Tawang during the undergraduation where people thought we almost got killed. Then the Yosemite trip where we had to camp at the valley coz we couldnt hike back in the night. Tahoe trip, this spring break, wasn't so bad except for the fact that we got lost in an almost un-inhabited rural place, no street lights, no signs, gas needle touching the 'E' and no cellular signals. I never blogged about that trip but it was kinda scary. My current trip to New Jersey wasn't so adventorous but it had its own set of twists and turns.

It all started when I decided to visit my sis and bil (bro in law) and niece after my spring quarter and before I start my intern. 2 weeks before I was supposed to leave, my niece poured hot coffee on her which caused some pretty bad burns. Poor kid :(..but she is doing well now. This prompted my mom and dad to come from India to take care of her for a while (both bil and sis hav full time jobs). Coincidentally, they landed in NJ on the same day that I did and we pretty much had a family reunion (except vicky was debugging code at MS in Seattle). So, on the upside I was able to eat home made Indian food for 10 days...hehe!

Now, I planned to drive upto Niagara falls with a couple of friends on the weekend I arrived. But, my sis had arranged for a party at her house and invited a hell lot of frenz on the Saturday (Jun 14th). So, I couldn't escape the event and gave up on my hopes on niagara falls. Suddenly, next week, sis tells me that we (the family) has to visit niagara falls on Sat (21st) because she wanted mom and dad to see it. What a good daughter :)) The thing was, I had to fly that saturday from NJ to LAX and take a bus to reach SB the same night. And then, I had to drive from SB to Mountain View on sunday (6 hrs drive) and start my intern from monday. So, I was on a really tight schedule but the good daughter was not ready to take any of it. I finally gave in, canceled my ticket from NJ and bought a ticket from Buffalo (Niagara falls) to LAX for sat evening 4:30. The plan was to reach niagara by fri night and see the illumination and do whatever we can on sat till 3 ish and drop me at the airport. One thing led to another and by the time we reached niagara it was 2 am!! So we missed the illumination and the fireworks :(

Meanwhile, X (one of the 2 friends) informed me that he is visiting niagara falls with his gf the same weekend. So, we thought, great, we can meet and do something. Now, considering we reached at 2 I just had 11 hours with me including sleeping time. So, me and T planned that we can do some hike early in the morning like from 7 to 9 and then I can do the touristy things with my folks. Anyway, he never called me at 7 coz he was too tired to wake up, so we decided to fuck it and just meet somewhere near the park. Now, he didnt want my folks to catch him snogging his gf during the romantic boat tours so we decided to meet in private or in the off chance that we met in the company of my folks I promised that I would pretend that I didn't know him:)) But as always, nothing happened according to plan and we didn't even meet in the park, despite he calling me like 6 times and I calling him like 4 times. So, I did the (apparently world famous...in america everything is world famous ;)) Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds, which were awesome btw, and by the time we reached airport, my flight had taken off! I could take the next flight but my last connecting bus from LAX to SB would have been gone so I was little worried. Anyway, I took the next flight and reached Atlanta to catch the connecting flight to LAX.

Unfortunately, in Atlanta I was told that I was put on 'Standby' and my seat isn't confirmed till all the regular passengers are seated. I didnt know what the heck this standby was, never traveled this way, so I googled it up. Apparently, non-revenue passengers (airport employees ' families) and misconnected folks like me are put into this. Pain in the ass, basically. At 9 I was told that the flight was full and I had to "try" (again on standby) the next flight which was at 9:20 am the next morning. Great! I'm 12 hours late, will probably reach SB by 4pm sunday and then I have to drive immediately to bay area for another 6 hours. On the upside, I will have a connecting bus from LAX to SB now :))

Luckily, I had couple of good friends (Jaini and Anand) in Atlanta and I called up Jaini who just graduated from Gatech and was working at Yahoo. I stayed at his place for the night and caught the 9:20 plane to LAX. Yea, I was finally given a seat!

Now, currently I'm at LAX waiting for the airbus to SB and writing this crap to while away time :P. Hopefully, I will be in the bay area by tonight if there are no more twists and turns except on the US101 :). I have a love-hate relationship with these long trips. Buttttt, for better or worse, these are the things that add spice to the life...what say?

Update: Looks like fate hasn't done with me yet. I reached SB at 4 pm and started the engine of my car and it didn't start! I opened the hood and found a squirrel inside! I hoped it didnt eat any wires...tried jump starting with Ankur's car and it didnt work. Finally called AAA...they charged the battery and it worked like a charm. I finally started my drive at 7:30 and reached bay by 12 ish! Whew....