Nagesh Kukunoor

Nagesh Kukunoor

Read what he had to say at Saarang this year. Interesting I would say. Anyway...Missed Saarang this year also...

Tunneling Through

This article about drug dealers are using an extremely sophisticated tunnel on the mexican border to enter the United states reminded me of the days long gone when i used to religiously watch Donald duck on TV. Sunday mornings were never complete without Donald Duck and company...and one of the oft repeated themes in DD was an attempt by some thieves to tunel into Donalds uncle's bank locker (the uncle is exceeedingly rich) and how they miserably fail to take the loot back every time...

Those days.........

Cigarette Smoking is injurious to health

In more ways than one it seems.... Read this report about a hostage situation in California...I have heard of hostage taking criminals ask for Helicopters and cars and Money and getting caught in the process but this particular suspects demand was "Cigarettes"....Yes that is correct indeed.. And the demand led to his ultimate capture.

Read the whole story here

Unproductive

The last few days have been quite unproductive...I have read a few papers and a cple of books but apart from that i havent had a single idea worth its salt. Am just letting things settle down in my head.

A question thats interesting me is

How does one ensure global consistency of estimates while all the observations that you have are local.
How can global order be perceived as a direct function of local order.
I can see that the bias-variance trade-off of estimators has profound impact on whether local solutions agree globally but am still not exactly clear about what the implications are :))

Chennai Musing of the day

To add to the musings of yesterday

12. Now that the number of seconds for the signal to turn green is prominently displayed at every traffic signal, it is always customary and mandatory to horn continuously at the people in front of you at the signal when the counter turns to 6 seconds.

13. If u r at the head of a signal it is your duty (to ur country) to risk your life and limb and start driving when there is about 6 seconds for the signal to turn green. If u do not heed then you risk getting a sore ear.

Chennai - Good Old Chennai

That has indeed been a long layoff...Thanks to an interesting an fun-filled month long stay in Chennai (alias Madras). Now that i am back in Maryland I hope to update the blog much more frequently....

Some small things that caught my fancy/eye/ear in Chennai

1. Everybody has a cell phone, even ur own housemaid
2. And by definition her instrument is better than the instruments that are common in this part of the world (USA).
3. Rain/Water Scarcity is not the most important topic of conversation for the first time in the history of the city.
4. The most profitable and lucrative profession in the word is that of a computer programmer...unless of course u have the financial and political might to start an engineering college.
5. Every man and woman in their twenties is working in one way or the other for the below listed few companies (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, CTS, ICICI ) ...Well almost.
6. The state government for a change does not seem to be sleeping...It seems to be working....eventhough the policies seem to be conflicting themselves, there is some work being done....and one can see the results.
7. Watching Sun News and Jaya News at the same time can be the most funny and ludicrous source of entertainment the world of free press can ever offer. Both news channels seem so free that neither are intent on NEWS. They seem intent only on political mileage from every NEWS item. The shameless manner of reporting the identical NEWS item in unbelievaeably contrasting view by these two channels was a prime source of entertainment.
8. Everybody watches some family soap serial or the other....Even the men do...Scarcely do the accept it though :)
9. Cars are common commodity. Everybody wants to own a car and those who already own one want to change it for a newer model.
10. You are an introvert and shy if you do not send more than 100 SMS messages a day. You are antisocial if you receive less than 100 SMS messages a day.
11. Tar roads are soluble in water....It rained in Chennai.....


More later