Nightmare

All in ten minutes

I really hate babies. They scream loudly and can't be reasoned with. Especially when they are seated next to me in airplanes. Which happens nine times of every ten flights that I board.

I was glad the ordeal was mere seconds from being over. I unbuckled my seat-belt and leaned forward to look out the window again. The baby-mama next to me that borrowed my pen smiled at me, thanked me for my patience and asked me what I do. I am a graduate student, I replied with a confident smile. She nodded knowledgeably but asked me which college I plan to join after my graduation. My smile degenerated a bit as I told her I had graduated from college. Her smile grew wider as her eyebrows arched. '"Are you doing a masters?", she inquired pleasantly. I barely nodded as Jeanne seated right next to me blurted, "PhD". Mommy let out a loudly approving 'Oh!' as I blushed uncontrollably and looked away as I shifted uncomfortably on my seat. I do not enjoy those anymore and quite justifiably so.

Fortunately, we were cleared for exit and I quickly picked my bag up and joined the line. Baby Pavarotti belted out one more number. I hastily dratted past the people attempting to join the line in front of me without a thought for courtesies as I heard Jeanne and Miorel laugh. I half-ran up the aero-bridge and finally stopped once I was in the departure lounge hallway to wait for the rest of the band to join me. I thought back about my uncomfortable moment with the lady.

It is not that I am not happy with my life right now, quite the contrary actually. I love my work and I love my lab. But I am tired of the overt effect of the title. It is just another degree and people my age in the industry are working harder. There is nothing special about it. Don't fool yourself or others - it is NOT more brain work than other lines and no - it is definitely not the job for geniuses. Yes, others work just as hard or harder. I feel guilty.

I remember a similar situation a month ago back home.

***flashback to a month ago***

"Protein Engineering", said dad with a proud grin.

I shot a half-amazed, half-annoyed look at him. I definitely do not do any such engineering or related work. I was surprised that this person had actually attempted to get a PhD in biology at some point in his life and actually published a paper before be left half-way.

"PhD, University of Florida", mom added.

"Oh!", said the family friend. "Then you must know my ......"

***a little later***

I accosted mom before she made her way to the laptop to start her afternoon Scrabble session with the bot. "Why did you have to say that?". "What else do you want me to say?", she asked back with mild annoyance. I stayed determined, " you could say graduate student". "And how do you expect them to understand that?", said mom tiredly. I smiled and said, "Precisely" but mom did not wait for me.

I grabbed dad a few seconds later. "Protein Engineering?!!". "Isn't that what you do?", he asked in amusement. But I wanted this to be serious, "I do crystallography. I told you that so many times." He replied, "I don't know too well what that is and surely others do not". "But Watson, Crick and Henry Bragg were crystallographers. It is a very old field. Nothing swanky new and cutting edge." Dad laughed just like dad does and walked away with Scoobie (who spared me an indifferent look) trailing for their mid-afternoon siesta. How is it that an "important" area of science sticks around for nearly a century and is not as known as protein engineering?

***present***

John joined me and pointed at me with a 'ha-ha' like a Simpsons character as the others pitched in with wide grins of their own. I rolled my eyes and looked away. Rob and Mavis walked over. Mavis said nothing but Rob's sinister smile pulled my attention to him. "I knew where you were seated sir", he let go and acknowledged the snorting from the group for his joke. They had all travelled with me long enough to discover my wonderful luck with yelling babies on flights. Yes there is something called luck and I haz none of itz.

I did not wait for their maturity to kick back in and sped up the hall behind Mavis. Toronto airport was nowhere as pretty as Vancouver but then again, Vancouver airport was the best I had seen. Toronto seemed much more travel worn, bare and cold. Probably only because of the strike, I thought. I had a very positive opinion of Canadian cities. The were US cities in a better state of prosperity. Maybe it was not going to be such a bad day despite the start.

I had reached the short queue at the Canadian immigration point. A lady with dull make-up and bright clothes waved at me and told me to head to counter 11. I smiled at her and mouthed a thanks as I headed to the counter. A well built officer with short hair and lots of gel leaned over the counter , took my passport and customs forms and asked me how I was doing as he turned to his computer screen and typed with quick jabs. I shared basic pleasantries with a broad smile. He then raised his eyebrows and looked at me with a smile, "So you were in Vancouver last week? I am from Vancouver. Did you find it beautiful?". I smiled my best yet. "Yes. Very".

"So what business are you here in Toronto for?"

"A science conference"

"What kind of science conference?"

"Crystallography". I was still grinning to my molars.

He frowned. "What is that?!"

I had a fleeting visual of mom, dad and Pammi laughing as I dropped my grin and my ears reddened. John must have noticed it despite my dark skin because I could see him smile behind me through the back of my head.

"Virus". I blurted. "Maths....Physics...Bio...Biophysics."

The officer's frown did not leave as he stared at me suspiciously. "So where are you staying?". I stared back blankly as I went redder. "A hotel".

"Which hotel? Is your conference at the same place?"

"Umm...I don't...I can ask my boss. She's just at the next counter.Mavis..."

He looked over at Mavis and Rob who were having a hearty chat about socialized medical systems with their counter officer.

"Are you all a group?"

"Yes. I nodded. We are all students. They are our bosses." I realized that my nervous word selection was getting more and more incriminating.

"Have a pleasant stay", he said as he tossed my form and passport back to me, the frown sustained. I strode past hurriedly. I did not wait for the others as i made a dash to the conveyor belts and parked at a seat. It was going to be that sort of a day, I agreed with myself.

The others arrived quickly as the conveyor belt squealed to life. I waited at my seat for the others to finish and come over as someone just walked up to me and said, "nice shirt". She was a conventionally pretty-looking girl, presumably in her late teens. I looked down at my t-shirt, recognized the Tux logo on it and looked back at her with a smile and said thanks. "I use Debian", she said. I was suprised but I cleanly masked it and mustered a pleasant "Gentoo". "Cool! Nice to meet ya", she said and glided away to the belt. I chuckled to myself. The others joined me and continued their banter but I wasn't listening at all. As we exited the airport the Debian girl was climbing into a chromed-out Mazda. She smiled again and waved at me and I waved back. It was going to be a great day.

We walked to the taxi pick-up point where a lady with a strong french accent quickly mouthed code into her walkie-talkie and ushered in two taxis for us. "Eet weel take a meenit", she said. "Thats alright," responded Mavis pleasantly. The lady smiled at us and looked curiously at the poster box I was carrying.

"Where are you going to?" , she asked Jeanne.

"A conference".

"What kind of conference?"

"A science conference"

"are you scienteests? Oh...!"



FML

Goosebumps

Aw Shaddup

The pity fest for the Utah Utes over their BCS title denial and the subsequent BCS bashing over the last six months had not disturbed me until today when I saw an interview of Utah senator Orrin Hatch who has been at the helm of the crying.

Yes Utah went 13 and out and indeed it has been a tremendous effort to go from unranked to #2 on the AP poll (#4 on the Coaches poll). Coach Whittingham has done a great job in repeating Coach Meyer's 2004 effort and I hail the Utes - Sugar Bowl champions. However, demanding a title shot over forefront teams Texas, USC, Oklahoma and Florida and whining and crying over it still is unreasonable.

Utah like all the other 1-A teams signed a contract with the BCS for that year stating their satisfaction and association with its rules. It thus is evident to them and everyone else that this system would demand a high quality schedule strength, dominant performance and all-round ability to contend for the national title. Utah scheduled just two BCS opponents - an all time low Michigan team that lost also to Toledo amongst others in their unfortunate 3-9 run and an Oregon state team that was unpredictable from start to end. That allows very less risk tolerance to Utah and tells me clearly that Utah never wished to contend with the bigwigs when they scheduled. Part of the scheduling included Utah backing out of a game with Texas. The rest of it was made of MWC minnows that all did nothing but play each other to win (with the exception of a Wyoming team that beat a fully depowered Tennessee team; BYU achieved the bowl game that it lost without beating a single quality team). Texas scheduled Oklahoma (which ended in the national championship), amongst nine other quality BCS opponents. USC played all BCS opponents including Ohio State which ended up in a BCS bowl almost winning against Texas. Oklahoma trounced through its brutal schedule which included a 35-10 blow out of a TCU team that Utah barely scraped through. Florida blew out reigning champion LSU and preseason #1 Georgia, amongst eleven other BCS opponents six of which won their bowl games. If computers had made an error in assessing the intangible reasons for Utah's title game qualification then the remaining human poll based assessments (which is 2/3s of the final positioning) were still unconvinced.

Utah fans must, as voluntary members of the BCS system, realize that a perennial power does not become one just in a day by throwing greens at the pollsters. They make the position because they schedule and play other perennial powers year in and out and prove themselves on the gridiron every year to retain their positions. No matter how much money a school has, on the gridiron the money or recruiting does not make them play. Ask Notre Dame who have been recruiting splendidly for a long as they have existed and still won only their first bowl game in 16 years in 2009. Ask Michigan whose 3-9 record was made by a top 15 recruiting class. A school with the contention quality of Texas, USC and Oklahoma is made only because they establish themselves by winning through a season or more of murderous scheduling. Bigger schools are in fact equal or bigger victims of the flaws of the BCS because they cannot afford mistakes despite their brutal schedules. Would Florida or USC have made the title game with Utah's schedule just because of their current legacy? Rhetorical question. No.

Until the end of the Sugar Bowl there was not a word from the Utes or the senator on their dissatisfaction with the BCS. But immediately after the victory, the Utes' pride swelled beyond the point that their brains could retain control and they belted out on their prerogative to everyone and their brother. That, without a doubt, remains a blind and irrational argument from the Utes and their fans and it definitely is not going to help their future progression.

Whatever the BCS system may be, it is better than its predecessor - the basic poll system. There actually is a proper national championship game to settle that final argument. The teams that ended up in the national championship have been teams that dominated a brutal schedule and emerged running. However, it has a lot of holes and complicated flaws and therefore every year there are teams that are unsatisfied with its verdict and claim to be victims of its convolutions. Nevertheless Utah cannot be one of them. Indeed if there were a team that had the right to complain, it was USC, with its top ranked defense, highly ranked offense and dominant performance against eleven purely BCS opponents 5 of which won their bowl games.

That said, for sure the BCS system is flawed and is no alternative for a true playoff and indeed a playoff must replace it very soon allowing deserving teams to take it all. But senator Hatch's sob story is not why it should happen. It should happen because it is what is right for everyone and it should happen to remove the fiscal monopoly of the traditional and perennial powers. It should happen because every year each team should be allowed to contend for the title on the same fresh page independent of their track record. That is how it should be fought and beaten. Saying that Utah deserved Florida's position is completely in relief of one's brains and rationality. If a Ute still continues to whine then he should consider requesting his team to defect to the 1-AA system that actually has a playoff. That way they can play clean and challenge Appalachian State (who also beat Michigan in Michigan) for the national title.

Damn you Bama for sleeping at the driver's seat and losing the Sugar Bowl.

I haz a vada pawz

Goodbye cruel world.

Limelight Kitteh. Covers most of page 3.

Hell in a handbazkit. U're doing it quite well akshuly.

why him?

Iz not having a baf and that iz final

I haz a vada pawz

red riding hood doggeh...looks like a a wolf's grandchild

will poze for fud

crouching kitteh, maddened dog on

snap fur now hooman...i knows where you keep your fanzy ties

analyzt kitteh...tracks all soreces

but i jus speaks to him yesturday

what the hooman did not know was that Anil was in fact a ninja...

bukwurm doggeh...readz you bedtime story

youz not making me look good here

prinz of persia kitteh...scales to find an exit

do i getz a vada pawz now?

-with the earnest co-operation of Snowy, Scoobie, Looey, Kuppi and USC Trojan squirrel spy

Google

Big fan. Really big fan.

I do like flashiness and eye candy when it is available. But that can be like the first snow effect. Looks good and feels good on the first day and only feels cold after the novelty leaves. What you need along with eye candy is good personal usability with minimal maintenance. Some manage to deliver it well so you can briefly come back to it later but it is really hard when both go wrong (read: Vista).

Microsoft Windows is like a socially conformist fair-weather friend. Everything is there at a superficial level, there are no goodies inside and no effort is made to change that yet people compromise and put up with it because they do not want to think beyond it. That is why Vista was still a success for Microsoft despite its big flaws. This is why Windows 7 will be a big hit like XP was.

Don't get me wrong - I do not blindly hate Microsoft, Apple or anyone else for the matter. Apple's hardware quality and design is near unbeatable. The day Microsoft does come out with a real quality product (in the lines of Excel '97 say) I will be one of the first to pick it up. However Microsoft has become lax and completely dependent on its market monopoly (resulting from various factors) and this mentality is reflected even in their "I'm a pc" ads. All innovation has gone out the 'window' and whatever is assembled is a cheap imitation of something original made by someone else. The "innovation" of the second half of the 90s as ruled by Microsoft was to make bigger meaner machines that simply take more load thrown at them. From a corporate perspective that may work effectively but from an academic and long term perspective it simply is not beautiful enough. How can McDonald's be the definitive element for satisfactory dining?

However the new millennium has gone back to defining innovation as an original product that can do better with lesser needs and an addictive interface that culminate into a great user experience (read: Wii, iPod) and Google has had a lion's share in bringing that back. Writing code is an art and Google, in that sense, is the Picasso of the current generation. Google's code-writers focus on how pretty the code is rather than what the end product is and have brought sexy back doing just that. Yeah they are a company too. They look at profiteering and gaining market share. But how they do it sets them apart. Indeed the compromising existence of a Windows user is relatively unfelt primarily because of what Google offers to balance their experience.

So here are twenty of the top ideas from Google that have changed our user experience for the better. I originally intended for ten but honestly there were too many ideas that were getting honourable mentions and I had to do them justice as a loyal fan:

Honourable mentions: Google Voice, Bots, Latitude, Sketchup, Ads, Vision, Blogger - Really I cannot allow past 20. The reader is bored already.

20. Images - Simple size control and customizable searches make this image search a winner over the others. No brainer.

19. Health - Unified health information for anxious minds. Great search based on input medical records. No Ads. Free for use. No profit for Google yet better than alternatives.

18. Code - This is what makes Google likeable to the free and open source community that is pretty much a closet bunch on platforms outside BSD and Linux. It is important that someone bigger than Canonical and IBM should promote open source development. Not only does it help release good developer ideas under public licences but also gives them tools to work with. And it holds a lot of personal good for Google to see all of this code and pick ones that are the coolest as personified by the Google Summer of code program. It really helps recruiting at Google as well, as it attempts to pick the best lateral thinkers thereby keeping its turnover as innovative as ever.

17. Video - Used to host videos until a month ago. Now functions as a pure search engine. It was a great idea to buy youtube.com as a video hosting site. Google video picks up from more sites and has a continually cleansed repository that makes it more child friendly than the yahoo alternative. The best part is that Web 2.0 based stats are available even for sites that do not offer that service.

16. Shopping and checkout - Froogle revamped. Great for cheap buyers who do not wish to risk some random seller on eBay. Even better for those who just want to get an idea on pricelines and the price-value trade-off. Not only are prices graded but products reviews are picked up as well.

15. Chromium - Really how much time would it have taken before Google forayed into a browser that best suits its vision and applications? The open source shell behind Chrome has just made its pre-release entries into the Unix word but even before that, it has done in just a year, what Firefox and Seamonkey were failing at - acquire market share from the dreadful and dangerous Microsoft Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, despite being open-source, it stays elusive to Unix-based developers who were the primary minds behind critically acclaimed Firefox plugins which is why its not higher up my list. But despite that limitation, it still has used its uncanny speed to rapidly garner fans much better than Firefox did. It scared Microsoft so much that they protested about Chrome potentially gaining complete monopoly if they provided it as part of Windows 7. Wonderful attitude.

14. Sites - The swanky new revamp of Page Creator is a futuristic tool. Where most page-makers are sticking to evolutionary changes, Sites has a wiki based approach that really makes it count. One does not have to bother about html's upgrades hampering website upgrades. Make a site like I write this blog.

13. Talk - Clearly there was something wrong with MSN and Yahoo messenger beyond their excessive options and slow interfaces. Talk did what Twitter's doing now. That is powerful.

12. Android - Nothing scared rival companies like the Android. Primarily because it embraced the FOSS ideology. Google first scared competitors by acquiring Android and releasing the Linux-based mobile OS. Then it did something scarier - it handed it over to the Open Handset Alliance to self-sustain. No it has not really affected the iPhone or Windows Mobile market much. But it has started off the first ever major open-source mobile software initiative that could threaten mobile monopoly. If only wireless service providers could allow it to reach its potential in at least as substantial form...

11. Reader - Google's feed reader is not too different from Mozilla's live bookmarks. Except for that it does not disappear if you reinstall your OS. It is not too different from other rival RSS services. Except for that it allows you to share articles with your friends with a click. And it works on my Wii.

10. Scholar - Pubmed was a go-to source and still is a great repository but Scholar beat it because of its spread and speed. More journals articles are scanned with more search options. There are links to the top names in a field which becomes very useful for a newcomer into the field. It even detects your subscription status to articles and offers links and notifications, but the biggest deal is that it threatens to dethrone the concept of impact factor. As long as your article is published in a journal with papers available online it is going to be picked up by Google Scholar so it does not matter which journal you publish in; your eventual reader and "citer" will be able to pick it up just like another high impact factor journal article. Many investigators profit immensely from this as they escape journal and academic politics and their citation levels gain unbiased from the number of people that view their publication online.

9. Picasa - First you make a web based photo album sharing tool that allows you to upload and download images in full size. Then you make a flashy desktop program for indexing and editing images. Then you allow easy integration, sharing and synching. Voila! you are alone with no competition.

8. Calendar - So every OS has a calendar and a appointment/task suite. Its a classic. What do you do when you forget to carry it with you? What if you need to recheck it? What if you want to change it remotely without all that remote computing hassle? Google Calendar synchronizes all tasks with most popular Calendars on all platforms.

7. Docs - No arguments here, nothing has been able to beat Microsoft Office yet. That is why most Macs carry Microsoft Office. And people pay to buy it even though Openoffice is free. Google Docs, instead of entering a flooded market of desktop-based suites simply creates its own Star-office based suite online. You do not have a winner but you have something that Microsoft never thought of. And that is because no one has done it before. So you don't need an office suite installed. All you need is a web browser with flash support.

6. Bookmarks - Everyone uses them now. Browsers even allow you to import from each other. How come nobody thought of putting it online? Actually yahoo did. And you can do more with yahoo's bookmarks like sharing them and seeing others' bookmarks. But well they don't involve themselves with a certain search algorithm...

5. Gmail - If you are of the rare species that has used gmail and left it for something else, shame on me. If you of the rare species that has never used gmail, etc etc. Who would have ever thought that you can put mails with the same title together into one conversation thread for a user? Who would have ever thought of giving more than a megabyte of mail storage space for free? Who would have ever thought of being able to search through your mail for something you need? Honestly, if you still use something like yahoo, hotmail or something more obscure, we must meet.

4. Wave - it is not higher on my list only because it has not been released yet. Since you have taken time off to read this blog post, take an hour more off and see this video. It may by your most productive hour for the week I guarantee you.

3. Integration - Apple really did well with its iLife suite that charms its patrons. But Apple is limited by its closed and monopolizing vision and that has been quite lucky for Google's system of integration. It will integrate with your mac, your pc or your hand-held. Google's way to success is not by selling closed products but by opening up to sharing, which is why so many have jumped on to the Google wagon. Google gears and Google Desktop get mentions here as fantastic proponents of the integrative capacity of Google. Way before the world coined the name 'cloud-computing' Google had its vision that would fit perfectly into the cloud-computing system where what hardware or OS you use would hardly matter in what you wish to do. Yes the internet is a must but once you have it, there's hardly a difference between what is on your desktop and what is out there in the rest of the world. And nobody has explored that like Google has.

2. Earth and Maps - Hands down this was Google's biggest gift. It is what made everyone realize how cool Google was. And it is still only halfway to where it is expected to be. Words cannot describe the ideas that went into these. Explore them. Period.

1. Search - Was there any doubt at all? The "grandaddy of 'em all" is the where it all started. Other search engines have not yet been able come close to its speed in a decade. Without this the other ideas would never have happened. Its as secret and not open-source thankfully and that is why it has been able to keep its feature, standards and speed as smooth as ever. Google search is probably the most benevolent and innocent giant you can find in any category of anything.

Sometimes idealism is the best way to be practical. I am feeling lucky.