Category: General

Went to the Art Fair at central campus last evening. Good fun. Here are some pictures.
:D

This is the sort of thing that bugs me. Society here is in general a lot more wasteful than they have to be. I was at this, let’s say cafe the other day. (Yes, hiding the name to protect the privacy of the employee of that place and all that jazz). I ordered a medium Dew. She says ok, and fills up a small cup. Then she looks at me and goes, oh, you asked for a medium right? I nod. She just pours out the small and fills another one in a larger cup.

Ah well, you make whatever you want out of this.

Back from my trips to M.I.T and Miami. Fun, but tiring experiences. Using free time before the next one to massively update the picture page.

Woke around 6:00 AM. As I had done most of my packing the previous night, there was very little to do in the morning. Showered, made sure I had all my stuff and left the room around 6:30 AM, half an hour before breakfast was served. So checked some email, settled the bills and checked out of the hotel. Had breakfast, and left for the subway, to start my trip back home.

It was uneventful, which was good. The only smart thing I did, was to ask the guy at NY, to do what he could to make sure my luggage was sent correctly. At which time it hadn’t reached NY. I knew they were incompetent, but this even I didn’t consider. I also re-got my boarding pass for the correct airline (the brainy lady had given me one for the NY-DET flight from BOS, for the other airline). He was amazed that I thought to be so thorough, considering everything “seemed” fine. I told him some details regarding the DET-NY-BOS trip and therefore, now being “seasoned” know what all can go wrong and know how to fix it. He jokingly told me to check for my luggage in DET before reporting it missing.

Reached the huge airport in DET. Took the train inside the airport to the baggage claim some 1 Km or something away. Found my bag, something which I assumed wouldn’t be there. It was fun, but that doesn’t mean I have to be any more positive about anything. Picked it up, rolled it out and found Ashwin’s car in a little while.

Then the drive back to Periamma’s home. Which completed the trip.

Now to get ready for the next one. Yay.

I had a hard time deciding which was more enjoyable, (I guess, in the end, it doesn’t matter) the events of this day or the previous evening. It started with this realization, something best articulated by my professor:

“Yup. This is enjoyable part, when you can afford to be the front row troublemaker with no fear of retribution.”

That was the theme for the day during the presentations, I listened more intently, tried my hand at the most intelligent questions I could come up with and so on. It was a different feeling. Everything was obviously feeling better now. I also experienced one of the most dynamic talks during that morning session. This person was all over the place, very animated and stressed very clearly all the points he wanted to make. He jumped off the stage, used the black (dark green) board even, to make his points. I really enjoyed the way he handled things. Ah well, next time or the time after or the time after, us amateurs will get as good.

When that session closed, at 12:30 P.M, I decided to leave M.I.T to grab some lunch before going on my sight-seeing trip. Back to Cinderella’s and this time, a fancy pasta, with a fancier sauce. I was really enjoying living this way, not having to look at price tags and so on.

Then back to a subway station, for which I had bought tickets and so on the previous day (prepared prepared) and reached downtown Boston. This was what I had not seen in SO LONG. Exceptionally crowded streets with so many people doing so many things. Walked around just taking it all in before I found where the official path started. There was supposed to be a group formed there, and a guide will take you around for free, but I guess I had just missed it. I walked off on my own, not following any “path”. There were museums, churches, meeting halls, important government buildings, famous people’s statues, important homes and locations and so on along this path. The details I don’t remember of course, and I don’t plan to look it up in the map and type it out. I do have pictures though, which I will put up later, which should fill the gaps.

Being a man, I didn’t need to ask directions as I “knew” where I was going. And before you know it, I was lost, and out of the path. Retraced my steps and got back to the main stream, where I now found a group with a guide. I joined them. This person took us around each place, and told us what is so relevant about these places. He was very enthusiastic, and had TONS of detail, complete with pictures, maps, question/answer sessions and so on. Everybody, including me were getting a bit bugged and slowly started breaking away deciding to do it on their own. This was just after 1:00 P.M sometime if I remember correctly.

Saw some nice fruit/vegitable markets, which were actually crowded and unclean. Saw narrow streets and things. Along this time somewhere, I had met up with another person (Krishpa, as in Krishna with a ‘p’, yes, a long story in itself) doing the tour alone. She’s a teacher from Canada. So we decided to do this thing together. (After ditching the guide.). She was one of those “full of life” people, and some of it evidently rubbed off on me at the time. After some buildings, including the home of J.F.K’s mother, there was a beautiful big bridge, which we walked slowly across, taking pictures all along. It was nice and warm with a pleasant breeze. (Stuff I forgot to mention earlier. Weather was good on all days except one, when it rained. I was dressed casually on all days, except the day of my talk.) Once on the other side, and a couple or so church/museums later, we were at this TALL tower. Got in, and was conned into walking up some 300+ steep steps up to the top. The view was good, but then again NO view is worth so much work. Everybody was tired.

Then moving along, some more sites and we were idly talking and went off the trail. She then mentioned taking a ferry back to close to where we started, and I found that idea fun, considering it’s less work. Again, walking-talking, and asking several people, we found our way to Dock-4, where a ferry was just getting boarded to leave. Payed the $1.25 and we were on our way. It was pleasant and the view was breath taking.

Back on land, we decided to head off to a nearby aquarium. The entry fee was some exhorbident $ 26 or something, but it was closed. (Which is a good thing since Ashwin told me later it’s pretty much a waste) By now it was 5:30 P.M or so and it closed around 5:00 P.M. So we then navigated our way through to Quincy market, a central place with again, a lot of people and many stalls, stores, etc selling different things. Window shopped for a while and admired some trinkets. Tired by now, decided to just sit down and enjoy what was going around.

Around 7:00 P.M or so, realizing it was getting late, I had to get back to pack and sort out some paperwork, and she had bought tickets to a play “Shear Madness”, we walked back to the nearest major train station where we left on different trains. I reached Harvard Square again, and spent some time on the streets listening to this lady sing in Spanish while a man provided instrumental backup. Now, I don’t know or care for Spanish, but they were very good, and passionate about what they were doing.

This day was important to me, I was beginning to forget how much fun and full of life people can be.

Feeling a bit exhausted by the events of the day, I decided to catch a quick bite to eat and returned home. I then found out from the information desk whether checkout procedures will take time, because, if it did, I’d rather get it over with that night. No real reason to do that was the response, and I returned to my room.

Sorted out different bills and folders. Carefully packed all my stuff, and went to sleep around 11:00 P.M. Slept like a log.

The big day had arrived. I practically knew what all I had to say by heart. I didn’t need the slides or any such thing. I had realized this during my earlier runs, I had thought about it so much without the slides, it was almost harder with them, as I tried to match what I said with what they had on them. And thoughts always don’t flow in the same order. Also, fun examples and other insightful comments get buried when I try to bring out all the facts as presented on the slides, which I realized they could read anyway if they wanted.

Woke at the usual just before 7:00 A.M. Didn’t bathe as elaborately, as I wanted to be there early. Had an awesome breakfast, and made my way to M.I.T. One plenary and two regular sessions (with a lunch involving a different lasagna in between) of waiting later, it was time for my session, which began at 4:30 P.M, my turn coming third on the list, which meant I started around 5:30 P.M. It was not too crowded. Only around 20-25 people, which was quite the expected level of crowd at the sessions by the third day. Plugged my computer in, got on the dais, and it went off as planned. Spoke slowly, clearly, said whatever I planned to say and don’t remember stammering. Didn’t need the slides really, so just looked at them each time I paged down to see if it was the right page. It took about half an hour on the whole including questions. The questions themselves were fairly elementary from my perspective, since I had looked at the problem for a lot longer, and hence had a far more detailed view than they could have grasped in a half an hour presentation. Answered everybody to their satisfaction, and ended the events in that session for the day. Everybody was seemingly impressed. Also, my work deals with some mathematics and physics that’s of a higher degree of complexity than is usually used for this sort of work (bio people are in general math phobic), so I have to say some of them were scared. In the end, I was a happy that it went off properly, and none of the worst case scenarios I had imagined happened.

To sum this, I re-iterate my teacher’s response.

“Wonderful, excellent, and all that sort of thing. Really, I am very pleased. Sounds just like it should have been.” … “You really should be very pleased with yourself. It is probably a record of sorts to give a conference talk within 4 months of joining a project, and moreover, to do so with no advisors present.”

That evening, I left a lot later from campus, and slowly walked back home, everything looking more pretty and beautiful. I was now peaceful and actually seeing things, rather than just staring blankly at them. I reached Harvard Square, a bustling active place close to my hotel. I spent some time on the road enjoying this performer in the street playing some music I liked. I spent half an hour there, and actually payed him some money for it. Something I’ve never done before, or thought I’d ever do.

Sometime along the way, I had gotten dinner as well. Now that I was actually seeing things around me, I realized I had been here for a few days and not done too much looking around apart from the campuses. (Which were very cool in their own way. I hadn’t mentioned earlier, but I did get to darshan a good chunk of the things and people I HAD TO SEE before I die. Some people HAVE TO SEE rivers or temples or some such, for me it’s revolutionary labs, equipment and people. To each their own. Also, somewhere in the middle, I visited a couple of major book stores, including The M.I.T Press book store, which prints some cool stuff, and bought a few things I had wanted to read for a while.)

Back at the hotel, I also noticed the women at the information desk weren’t too happy about all us academics not doing anything other than, what we were doing. So I did the best I could to humour one of them, by letting her help me plan half of my next day. One of the smartest things I’ve done. At the end, it was decided that I should take the “Freedom Trail”. Boston is a historically important city, and this is a walking path which has a good deal of important sites, which are now museums and such along the way, so people can walk around and catch a lot of things in one go. Took a couple of maps, including the subway maps on how to get to downtown Boston, where this tour started, and retired for the night.

Simple things make such people happy. She was all happy that she got to help, and that I was actually going to take time out from “important things” and see their fair city.

This I guess would be the least eventful day. It was basically a repeat of the previous day, except I had a most deliciously prepared lasagna for lunch, and I didn’t go to the museum. I didn’t take out the camera. I also got home (meaning hotel) a bit earlier, to iron out the talk some more with my professor. That evening, I just went for a walk, and ran through the talk atleast 5 times in my head. Considering, it’s a 25 minute deal, I was out for over 2 hours just thinking and randomly walking. Of course, with a drink in my hand.

(Interestingly, I’ve lived in Madras so long, and I always look a couple of times each side before attempting to cross a road. In Ann Arbor, I just walk, they will stop. Almost got killed a few times in this trip not remembering I was out of Ann Arbor. Such “deep thought walks” were when such events occured.)

I was feeling quite good about this by this time. Earlier, at M.I.T, I had also done the other usual preparatory things like checking whether my laptop worked in the room I was supposed to talk in the next day, and other such technical things which I didn’t want bothering me the next day. I only try to appear “underprepared”, I am quite orderly and well planned. Also, began to talk to other people around of different ages, and made some contacts in different universities. Surprisingly, no ulterior motives, just interesting to talk with people in the same line of interests from different places.

Slept very soundly, considering the magnitude of events of next day. I again feel this is because, the whole point being, at the end of the day, it’s a university, and these are scientists and technologists who are listening. This is my element, no need to really worry. It’s I who has put in months of thought into this work, not them. I automatically know more, or something equivalent. This realization calmed me I suppose.

Woke the next day, around 7:00 AM or so, thinking that should be early enough to reach M.I.T before 9:00 AM. Had an exceptionally long and soothing bath. Hours later, checked email and decided to go down to breakfast. Now this turned out to be quite good fun as there was a lot of choice. Picked some fancy cakes and breads and teas and cereal and juices… and hogged like a pig. Why? Generally shameless, that’s why. All these ordinary activities taking a lot longer than they should, I set off towards M.I.T, a lot later than I had anticipated. This time, I used the train to take me part of the way. But I then realized, the walk to the station, taking the train to another, and the walk from there to the hall is just as bad as the whole walk. Again, crowded and noisy. Good.

Everyday, there are two “main” lectures in the morning, called the plenary lectures in BIG halls, seating few hundred people. The other lectures are held in smaller halls or class rooms. These can seat from 30 – 100 people. It was very chaotic actually, since there were so many sessions running in parallel. This meant, to see one you would have to end up missing more than 10 or so other talks. It also meant that the crowd which was a few hundred strong now couldn’t show up, in average, more than 30-50 per talk. The first two days, I ended up missing the plenary lectures, due to the length of the morning activities. It felt so worth it.

Found a session I wanted to attend and found the building and the room I had to be in. Again, general chaos and mismanagement, it started a little late as the chair of the session, a guy from B.M.W was assigned more than one room to chair at the same time. After the initial confusion, things got started. The talks were mostly interesting. The students had their teachers alongside to help them with complicated questions and so on, a luxury I couldn’t afford. The only thing was, since there were people from all over the world – Tokyo, Serbia, U.S.A to name a few countries, everybody spoke differently, and coupled with the complexity of the things they were talking about, not all were easy to follow.

In the first two days, I actually carefully planned what I wanted to see, finding different rooms and buildings trying to catch different talks. Later realising that was too much work, would just go to a session and stay the entire time there listening to different talks on a similar theme. Now, I can’t go into any more detail, all that needs to be said is I attended different sessions. The first one is from 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM, which starts after a half an hour break after the plenary lectures from 9:00 A.M – 10:30 A.M. After my first session, I left M.I.T to find lunch. Found a very nice Italian restaurant called Cinderella’s, which served a lot of good stuff, vegetarian too. My first day, I started off with a basic pizza. It was pretty good.

Then on the way back, I ran into the M.I.T museum, a place where some of their work and achievements are on display. It was catalogue of some absolutely brilliant stuff, and a lot of technology that’s changed the world in a lot of ways. Again, no details, but it was fun to see some of the stuff I’ve only read about or seen on Discovery. Took a lot of pictures, including my personal favourite in this trip.

The next session started at 2:00 P.M. But the fun I was having at the museum, I made it to the room only around 2:20 P.M. Suffice to say it’s quite a “hands-on” place. Then attended that till 4:00 P.M which is it’s scheduled end time. There was another one scheduled at 4:30 P.M – 6:00 P.M and a plenary discussion from 7:00 P.M to 9:00 P.M or so. This was the same schedule everyday, but on most days, except on the day of my talk, I would get saturated by 5:00 P.M – 5:30 P.M and left. After leaving the first day, walked around taking pictures of M.I.T from the outside, and then made my way to Harvard and repeated the procedure. This was a bit dissapointing as I messed up and lost that set of pictures. Ah well.

Back to the room, and worked on my presentation some more, in my head. Spoke to the professor that evening and sorted out some more details with what has to be said and how I plan to put it across. They were helpful in that regard, I think I needed that. I was a bit tense. But not as much as I was before leaving home, as I realized, it is a formal deal, but it’s still a “academic” atmosphere, something I am comfortable with. After talking to him, I ran out to my friendly pizza shop, the “Mass House of Pizza” and grabbed a couple of slices to eat. I like that store, the owner is friendly, and actually talks to each customer as if they were important.

Also, by now got into the habit of walking around with a Sprite or something in my hand at ALL TIMES. Partly, obsession to hold something, partly addiction. Got back to the hotel and slept.

The deal was to start typing this before I got home. There, there are other things waiting, like not starting on the work for the second conference. Since a few days have passed since I’ve gotten here, many details will be forgotten, but then again they shouldn’t be so important if I can’t remember them now. It’s been typed out in the hotel room, in the airport, on the plane, at Periamma’s home and home in Ann Arbor. There will thus be a discontinuity of thoughts or repetitions at times.

As an abstract, (for those lazy to read the whole thing) the place was very different and nice. The trip started off a little “not so great” and ended up being the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Ate well, stayed in a nice place. The campuses of M.I.T and Harvard were very impressive. The talk went off well, and most of the other talks were very interesting and thought provoking. And I took a lot of time in the final day, to go sight-seeing. Walked a lot, and enjoyed the concept of public transport being able to take you where ever you want to go. Made a small bunch of contacts and “friends” in this trip. All in all, definitely a nice experience.

Things didn’t start off so well. Point being, I kept cool, and sorted stuff out, MYSELF. Everything from the tickets, to the hotel reservations, to travelling and finding my way around.

I had checked my bag in all the way to Boston, which was in retrospect not a smart move.

Then there were no activities for a while after the security fiasco. I waited near the gate for the flight. The airport is very nice here and it’s huge. Need to take an internal train to get from point to point. Eventually, took off to New York, my middle destination. The flights are less than an hour or so in length and feel insanely short. We get in, have a beverage, and before you know it, the captain is announcing descent. Arrived at NY with no more incidents, till then.

The deal with these terminals for checkin are that they are split up by airlines. Which is a good thing. The bad thing is that they are in disjoint buildings, which are far away. Another confusion was my ticket was issued by an airline, but the actual “carrier” was another airline or some such nonsense. All these incompetent fools are so irritating. Moving between these buildings, which aren’t really close, is not “people on foot” friendly. It’s designed for cars or waiting for a bus. Since I only had like an hour, couldn’t wait for the bus. Walked far away and found a terminal. There the lady goes, “I know your ticket says this, but we meant you should go to that ‘carriers’ terminal. You don’t have too much time so take the BLAH bus to BLAH BLAH.” OK I say, remain calm, and walk all the way back to another terminal in a different building. Make it well in time.

Here, the security screening and so on were handled the same for everybody, and they did scrutinize some people more, but only if the ‘preliminary’ screenings came up with something ‘suspicious’.

Again, uneventful and short trip and I was in Boston. It is a pretty place. Periamma had given me Ashwin’s cellphone, and I used it the one time on the trip to tell her I had reached there safely. Strolled down to baggage claim, waited, nothing happens. So ask some of the baggage handlers there and find the lost baggage claim office. There, there is this set of sweet old lady types. You want to scream, but you automatically won’t. Smart employment strategy.

Told them about the general events. They saw the tickets and decided their people would have been just as confused as I was and that’s why it isn’t here. She also tells me that there are flights very often between NY and Boston, so it should come soon enough. Waited for just under an hour for the next flight. When it didn’t come on that as well, I returned, gave her the hotel contact details and left.

(As luck would have it, it supposedly arrived on the next aircraft. If I remember correctly, I had arrived there at 12:00 PM and waited there till 1:00 PM or so. The baggage arrived at 2:00 PM.)

I had, earlier found out from the internet and Ashwin about how to get around the city. Took a bus from the airport to the subway system, called their ‘T’. Found my way after a couple of train shifts to Harvard Square, in the middle of Cambridge, they “yuppie” part of town as Periamma puts it. It felt perfect.

Walked around for quite some time looking for the hotel. The place was beautiful. I then began to realize how much I missed the concept of crowds. The streets were filled with people. They were dirty, the roads were noisy, the cars moved slowly, there were homeless people and beggars on the street, smells from restaurants, coffee and tea shops, small hawkers… so much I have been “shielded” from in all this time. It felt good. Ann Arbor, in comparison, is some sanitized, sterilized, noiseless, smell-less, all “happy happy” people zone. It feels very different and not-real.

Found the hotel eventually. (“Losing” the suitcase was a good thing. It wouldn’t have been easy to walk around for the first time looking for things and lugging that around.) Checked in. The hotel is a very small quaint place. I think I was the only non-European in the hotel. Which meant, people spoke a lot less in English, but also meant the breakfast they served there was awesome. Made a few phone calls to the luggage people to find out status. They didn’t know at the time. Then decided to go out and eat, before heading off to find M.I.T. Armed with a map and some change, left, found a small pizzaria close by, which became my staple dinner place. Grabbed a sandwich and walked towards M.I.T. About 40 minutes, a few wrong turns included, later, I found the auditorium where I was supposed to register for the event. Did all that paperwork, picked up some brochures, some maps and left. The bag they gave was something so stupid looking, like some jute bag of some freedom fighter. Even Gandhi would’ve been embarrased to touch this bag. It was so funny to see people in high tech suits and laptops on one side, with this “pai” on the other. To make matters even worse, it was made in Pakistan. Yes, I look at ALL the details.

Walked around the campus for a while, and took some pictures. Got back home later that evening, and called the airline, again. Surprisingly, I used the phone, like 5 times, in ONE DAY. Was impressed. Now the lady at the other end told me it had been found by 2:00 PM and it was on their delivery truck since then. It was now 6:00 PM, but she also told me not to really worry as they do take time to get to places. Again, they put the nicest people on these sorts of jobs, it’s very hard to really stay mad.

In a little while, it arrived at the hotel. Signed for it and got my stuff. Nothing of great importance was in the suitcase, just some clothes, but still. Don’t remember what I did after that. I think I checked some email and prepared to sleep. Mailed my professor the contact details, to work later on the presentation. No dinner, had eaten late in the afternoon.

Overall, I was pretty proud of how I handled things that came up.

I actually had a haircut today :P.

Ahh well. it was more of a trim but definitely sets me back a few months work. But yes, managed to take a pic before :). Me before the hair cut.

Some more pictures added to the picture page. Working on some new art too in my spare time. Also working on plans to rework the artwork page.

Well, free as in beer anyway. This is amazing news. RTCW was an awesome game I must say. Now they’ve gone and made RTCW: Enemy Territory, a multiplayer only game (I think) and released it out for FREE to the general public for consumption. :D

Nice. Happy Fragging.

And the Kalam week continues. First the cool book which, I hope, Ignited my mind and now this. He is a smart man. Advocating Free Software over Microsoft’s products. He also apparently gave a speech to IIIT, which to people over here sounds no different from IIT, and they assumed it’s of MIT caliber. Now, that’s sad.

But the real story, the fact that people in power have insight into such techy things, is very very cool. Proud I be.

erm bags. People here don’t know / don’t like using the word cover. They need to use ‘bag’ exclusively, for everything, except bags, which become rucksacks?

Anyway, took a trip to central to find the camera store and my a suitable case for my camera. So much for all that research into what I really wanted. 1. They didn’t have it. 2. They didn’t know what would fit my camera, because they don’t deal with Olympus, rats. Picked up a decent looking one anyway, just hope it fits all that I want it to fit :P.

I posted the links to my artwork on Linkin Park’s forum and the responses so far seem to be very positive.

Wickedly Sweet :D (or whatever the local term is)

From being an insane addict, I have managed to remain sober for about a year. Gaming I mean. Mostly this is due to having a non gaming-friendly laptop, but other reasons like trying to get a life, and work also had their part play.

All that is about to change soon enough I suppose. It has to, I mean, Doom 3, Homeworld 2, Half-Life 2, The Longest Journey – 2 and so on.. not to mention Ati Radeon 9800 pro and the Geforce FX along with the hyperthreaded P4 3+ GHz machines. Drool.

I need to build a machine soon, just have to. Need to build a monster and buy bandwidth, if I have to, and hurt my wrists, eyes, and brain all over. How fun is that? :D

Also been eyeing the Gamecube. Either I get both, or just the computer. Just have to.