forget the last post - this one is better

At New York’s Kennedy Airport today, an individual was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of
the notorious al-gebra movement.9 He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

“Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,” Ashcroft said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns’, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are three sides to every triangle,” Ashcroft declared.

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have letter weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from those who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line.” President Bush warned, “These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on
a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a higher power and begin to factor in random facts of vertex.”

Attorney General Ashcroft said, “Read my ellipse. Their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks.”

Math P J

A group of Polish tourists is flying on a small airplane
through the Grand Canyon on a sightseeing tour. The tour
guide announces: “On the right of the airplane, you can
see the famous Bright Angle Falls.” The tourists leap out
of their seats and crowd to the windows on the right side.
This causes a dynamic imbalance, and the plane violently
rolls to the side and crashes into the canyon wall. All
aboard are lost. The moral of this episode is: always keep
your poles off the right side of the plane.

I wouldn't blame you if you did not laugh!!
http://www.ams.org/notices/200501/fea-dundes.pdf

TechnoPolitician

I have been doing a lot of technical and techno-political (if that exists) reading. Partly this interest lies from me being away from it for quite some time (read married life). Apart from the bashing of PS3 and praise for Wii from either camps, and unnnecessary praise for eveything Apple (iT1, iJingoCheetah etc), I came across a couple of links that were interesting.

Though "Support OPEC, buy an SUV" sounds good on paper, hydro, electric and hybrid energy are enthusiastic endeavours. Alas Oil companies and Big Brother does not support this as seen from the following link
Link 0 - http://easygrowhouseplants.blogspot.com/2006/12/inventor-of-water-powered-car-murdered.html

Link 1 - A very very nice interview with Tim Berners-Lee about his story about developing the WWW.
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#Examples

Old Joke - but good laughs

------Jocks vs Nerds----
Michael Jordan having "retired," with $40 million in endorsements, makes $178,100 a day, working or not.

If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head.

If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there.
If he decides to have a 5-minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it.

He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage.
He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends.

If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours.
If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.

He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round.

Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), his contributions will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st.

If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year.
He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, and about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.

While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600.

This year, he'll make more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined. Amazing isn't it?

However...If Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 450 years, he'll still have less than Bill Gates has today.

$$$ Game over. Nerd wins.

3+3= whirlwind

The days of fattening the newlyweds with the choicest of dishes + visa appointment. As you can see we survived both and the whirlwind ended.

Now i feel fine about writing udder stuff on the blog.

3+3+3=whirlwind

The second 3 days is where things turn a little bit more interesting. Now many people will agree with me and many wont, but I put my foot down for that custom/rivaaj called as mehendi where sisters+aunts+cousins of the bride come to my house and subject me to a round of mehendi, grabbing a finger in the end and demanding money to end the torture. (hehe). Henna fine, custom not fine, reason don’t ask. So you would believe that there would be an outcry from the bride’s family about it. Gosh the only outcry was that from my family. No one could explain why this custom came around, no one could explain why green bangles are the norm – but all they were scared off were some superstitions. Surprisingly I found support from all my cousin brudders. Each one had opposed it, but fallen to it in the end, but was happy that I was still standing. In the end all the womenfolk from my house went to A1’s house and had a good time. Good ending to a useless debate.

Day of the nikaah, people were still arriving and we were still picking them up from the railway station. (its India – airports are luxuries). 3 hours to nikaah, and we brothers decide to take a little detour – a detour to find out what are the preps at A1’s house. (Our nikaah was at A1’s house itself). Detour was fine, peeped into their preps, and then zoomed off. Coming home we discover that my contemporaries from my in-laws had come to probably trade my wedding clothes for useful moolah. Since I was out on a detour I missed them, and they probably left disappointed. Feel bad about missing them – because this was not like a blind rivaaj/custom but just some fun time with no superstitions attached. When we reach home – the elders remind me that some picky maulanas will not accept anything except hard cash for mahar – and that was not what we had planned. It is great to have brilliant minds that have experience plenty of weddings to classify the maulanas into useful categories. Last minute arrangements were made. There was still a problem with number of drivers and number of cars. Just the usual at weddings since we always have more guests than the cars to transport them and public transport (rickshaws/taxis) don’t always suffice. Turns out that being the groom I cannot drive, and hence I am at the mercy of others. Things get resolved and we arrive to the nikaah. Stage is set, paperwork gets introduced, maulana wants cash, maulana gets debate from elders, maulana explains his position, cash he gets, wakil etc get signatures, T1 is staring through all these procedures, and gullibly signs on the dotted line when his turn arrives, T1 tests mic, T1 proclaims his nikaah, T1 reads dua with maulana surprised that he did not have to repeat, maulana hugs T1, T1 hugs everyone else in the long line, everyone else in the long line hug T1’s dad/mamoo/wakil. In this organized confusion, A1 magically appears on the stage and T1 heaves a sigh of relief. Now time to stare into the light and smile at every guest on the stage, posing with a few as necessary. C+D+N+S+K arrive and ask about the food and also wish us (Never was happier). Lots of photos, thanks to WK. Great food in the end and a non-tearful bidaaii. Cousins smuggle some money out from me for allowing us to enter into the house. No rituals are allowed (right somebody spoke of kicking milk can) only entering with the Koran.

Day of walima was even better. Jetlag finally gets to me, and I pass out at 3pm and wake up at 6pm. The walima invite mentions 7pm as the time, and I am identifying myself with all the people whom I had labeled as late-latifs. Turns out I am pretty quick after a nap. We were present at the open air garden at 7:15pm. Quite impressive, huh!! Guests pour in, faces that were kids in front of us are suddenly standing 3-5 inches above my head. Good reunion follows with all the people, but then the light on our faces becomes unbearable. M-the photographer remarks occasionally on my sullen face. Again C+D+N+S+K wish me, and then return after savoring the food and all their lip-smacking made me wonder if A1 could manage the stage by herself while I took a small walk to the food. Here is where married life comes into the picture and then I wonder about the food but mention it not to A1. Finally we take a big Sheikh family photo spanning multiple generations and then food. Food never tasted better. And then TaDaaah welcome to real married life. Festivities are done.

Seriously parents rock!!!! To bring about so much for their son sitting far away takes a lot of energy and inspiration and hardwork. If you really feel that this was anyways a fun event (and even if you don’t), please remember my parents in your duas/prayers as this is the only gift that I can give them.

3+3+3+3=whirlwind

Three days from the time I land till the time life lands on me. The last time family used this same flight, they reached an hour early. But the VIP that I am, the plane is delayed in Heathrow due to bad weather and subsequently we were waiting for air traffic control to give us the go ahead to land. The taxi from airport was booked for 11 am and there I walk out at 1:30 pm. Why was I worried about this 2 hours? Patience junta that’s coming. So Mr. Cabbie was sleeping under a tree, and when I wake him up lo and Behold!!! He happens to be the same one who picked me up and dropped me back the last time. A joyful reunion follows, and all the broken marathi flows freely as if nothing has changed. Over home-grown peanuts, the journey to Pune lasts 3.5 hours. An even more joyous reunion follows – dad,mom,gmom,sis etc etc. nice cuppa tea and time for me to drive the car. (left hand drive usa – right hand drive India). Time for me to get wedding clothes stitched. Plan was to leave 2 hours earlier for all of this since shops close at 8-9 pm in my dear old Pune. People normally have their clothes all ready 3 days before the wedding, but kya karen videsi dulha plane late. So count 5400 seconds and shopping was completed – from the head to the toe!!!!

Remaining important shopping was scheduled for next day. Sherwani time at a super store is quite interesting. Apparently another dulha like me was also searching for a sherwani and lets just say that I was 5 inches taller than him on any normal day. Now sherwani tends to make you appear a little short. So ultimately looking at me, he decided that jodhpuri was more his style, whereas vice versa I decided against a jodhpuri. Anyways it was a nice time to stand on a lighted ramp in front of a body length mirror in a room of a grooms to be, each chatting with his own family.

At home, surprises abound – cousins not seen for 20 years make a magical appearance. Obviously, I remember no one, and they remember the 4 foot T1. Not-so-niche-comments like – “Oh so he is the dulha?” flow freely. All the pent-up guilt of not knowing could not be hidden from the faces. But it was great to see my gdad’s generation at my wedding.

Flame Fractals

http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10878_11-33277-37.html

Amazing fractals for better desktop backgrounds!!

please dont kill me as yet for not writing about my hectic two weeks at india. its already old so may not be of interest and i am all for skipping it. :)