Too much time and too little to do

Been killing time with stuff like this. Tried creating this imaginary Facebook conversation.

—-This is not a forward!—

On a scale of infinity

Life is a chain of events. I am sure all of us must have looked back at events in our life and wondered if we could have predicted them. To rephrase this, if you were asked to predict what you would be doing in a year or so from now (in fine grained detail) and asked to bet your iPhone on it, would you take the bet? Probably not. You could squeeze your brain for every ounce of creativity and come up with a myriad probable paths for your future, but rest assured that “real life” although not dressed in a red coat and riding a sledge pulled by flying reindeer, will deliver surprises much bigger. To quote Conan Doyle from one of the Sherlock Holmes stories- “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” I remember one of my friends who writes here- I came I saw I floundered , had a similar view. I didn’t give it much thought then. The more I think about it now, the more I am struck by the vastness in which we exist and without which life would be predictable and devoid of such variety. Without digressing much and exposing my poor Physics know-how, I would like to draw your attention to Quantum mechanics and the theory of parallel universes. The former states that a particle can take an infinite number of paths at each point in it’s history and the latter conjectures that there are an infinite number of universes encompassing everything that can possibly exist (So you could be a dictator in one, a singer in the other etc). With an infinite number of possibilities it is no wonder that we can’t foresee our future. I find comfort in this fact. For to know your future would mean that you know what you can and (more importantly) can’t do. I would rather be surprised to meet an old friend rather than to greet him/her with a “I know I would find you here” smile. Or, twist my leg trying to skate rather than not trying at all knowing that I can’t- which brings me to astrology. If astrologers could indeed predict what or where I would end up in a few years I could carefully orchestrate my life for the next few years to make sure that the prediction doesn’t work, which would mean a fail for astrology!

The beauty of life lies in it’s inconceivable expanse- both in space and time. If ever you thought human beings and earth have a special role, the vastness and by extension the probability of much advanced life forms existing will humble you. And more importantly, if you are faced with a problem, rest assured that someone, somewhere and at some point of time in our 50,000 year odd history must have grappled with it and probably solved it and so you are not alone when you face problems on this third rock from the Sun.

A study in contrast

I can hear my laptop fan whirring as I type this. Its a quiet place, the one I stay in. Quiet people going about their quiet business just like all the apartments here (here=USA). And me having no business after coming back from work should have blogged a lot. But I lazed. If ever there was a pool of laziness then I must have swam, dived and snorkeled in it.

I have been watching movies though. After successfully ignoring I am Legend for months I finally gave in and decided to watch it yesterday. I don’t mean to boast but I usually get it right when I say movies suck before they release. I knew I am Legend would suck before it released and boy did it suck. All it needed was a Jawbreaker to suck on. Well, an exaggeration probably, for there were moments in the movie when Will Smith wasn’t conversing with the dog which made it faintly interesting. But frankly the movie lacked depth and a firm story line. If ever I had any lingering doubts about the movie after watching it, they were blown to smithereens when I turned on Donnie Brasco immediately. I couldn’t have chosen a more contrasting sequence of movies to watch. A ridiculous post-apocalyptic drab about a man and a dog in one and an intriguing story played by two true legends in the other. Hail Al Pacino and Johnny Depp!. And I fervently hope that I don’t see Will Smith as the last man on earth again.

Ah. And now I get to write about someone who deserves a post dedicated to him. One movie which I avoided watching was Sherlock Holmes. I have read the short stories, the novels , memoirs, you name it. And I have read these multiple times. I still remember the first Sherlock Holmes book which I read as a kid- The Hound of the Baskervilles (I was pretty confused at that time because of the number of times the Baskervilles guy was killed). In writing Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle created a fictional legend like no other. Here was a man endowed with supreme faculties of observation, capable of deducing events long after they happened, a boxer, a swordsman and a violinist. And yet there is this enigma to Holmes, a degree of eccentricity and aloofness which reassured me that he would solve the case. Some lines from the books are unforgettable like the “You’ve been in Afghanistan, I presume”  in A study in scarlet (where Holmes deduces Watson has been in Afghanistan from his tan and stiff arm) and this one’s my favorite at the end of The Sign of four- “For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.  No movie or series had ever done justice to Holmes. It couldn’t. He was and still is larger than life. Besides, the Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr was supposed to offer a totally different perspective on Holmes. So I vowed never to watch it. It would be disrespectful to Holmes. But hey, I couldn’t resist it when it was staring back at me when I browsed through my hard disk everyday. So, I watched it. And surprisingly I enjoyed it. There is no resemblance to the Holmes from the books except for a few moments in the movie when Robert Downey Jr throws clever lines. But it entertains (with plenty of humor thrown in). So, yeah sorry about that Holmes.

In keeping with my tradition of stringing together unrelated stuff, I have to write about how my fascination with cars is gradually nearing an end after coming here (here= California/USA). Cars are everywhere. They didn’t joke when they said Aliens would mistake cars to be earthlings if they were to look at this place. Back home, a Honda Civic was a dream, a Camry would get ogled at and a BMW was revered. Every 3rd car at my office here is a BMW, a Civic cuts a sorry figure and a Camry doesn’t deserve a second glance. Except for a convertible here and there, no car stands out on the road. As indistinguishable and non striking as  swarms of ants with the occasional Queen ant eliciting a sigh.

The Alligator, Okeechobee and the silence of the ‘H’

This is something which is way off the timeline. I had a backlog of things to blog about and being lazy and of the procrastinating type, well I procrastinated. I have tried my best to condense some interesting stuff from the first 4 months of my stay here in Gainesville into this post.

So we are called the Gators. We who go to the University of Florida. And not surprisingly you have “Gators” attached to anything and everything- from drinks, to your ID card and yes even your health insurance. And it is for good reason. Although it might sound like an exaggeration, most bodies of water in Florida supposedly have some Alligators in them. That by itself is not something which would freak you out. So Florida is a hot, swampy place and a conducive home for Alligators. But what would freak out an Indian for sure is to see people swimming in a Gator infested lake. Oh yeah, there are some nets below the water. But jeez, you have Alligators a few hundred yards away. In India, if a lake is known to have crocs, the lake would probably be surrounded by a fence, the fence itself wouldn’t have seen any Human within 100 yards of it and then you might catch a sign somewhere down the road leading to the lake warning you of crocs. This being my fragile background, I was simultaneously struck by thoughts about my family, my health insurance and my last day in office as I frantically tried to paddle my Kayak (which was entrenched in some weeds) away from a Gator which was lying motionless a few feet away. I resolved never to go into that lake again (and broke that resolution once). I have been told that Alligators are not aggressive, at least not in the least as crocs. But hey, Wikipedia says The alligator is notorious for its bone crushing bites. Be that as it may, it’s very interesting to see this difference in attitude between Americans and Indians (maybe I am generalizing here) towards Gators/Crocs (for all practical purposes they are the same to me). As an example, my friend has a lake behind his house and he casually throws in that it has Gators in them!

I have read and seen a lot of Thanksgiving Dinners on TV and often wished that I could have one too. Well I did have one! My first All American Thanksgiving. Thanks to my friend who had me over to his place for Thanksgiving. I did think it would be kind of weird before I went, because it is supposed to be a family affair mostly. But it turned out to be alright and an awesome experience at that, sitting at a neat table with a carved turkey being the center of everyone’s attention. That was Thanksgiving. And then there was Okeechobee. Okeechobee is a county in southern Florida. No, I didn’t exactly go there, but I couldn’t resist using that native American name. I went to West palm beach, Okeechobee being on the way. At West Palm beach you can see the Atlantic ocean and you also get to see unbelievably huge mansions connected to the beaches through tunnels!

I have always thought my English was decent and one of my stronger points. I was in for a rude shock when I stepped into the USA. Half the people in the Atlanta airport couldn’t understand more than half the things I said. On my first day in college I was searching for a place called the Institutional Review Board and not being able to find it, I ask an American woman. And she looks at me for a minute and says- “The instituuuuuutional whaaat?. Son I can’t make a thwing of wot u are sayin”. In some cases the way Indians pronounce words are wrong and in some cases they are just different. For example I got my way through 16 years of education in India with no silence on the ‘H’ in Honor. After a heated argument with my American friend, I had to agree that it was silent. Not so with words like Infinite which is pronounced as Infiknit here. It’s just a different way of pronouncing. There are differences in some terminologies too. You never say queue, you always say line. You will be looked at weirdly if you say you are going to a hotel to eat. You go to a restaurant to eat. A hotel is synonymous with our lodges. Other differences not necessarily associated with words- I have hardly seen people untying their shoe laces here or wearing long socks, its mostly anklets. And for the first time I realize that it makes a lot of difference when you say you want to take a bath and when you say you want to take a shower. Finally, for the love of God, Cadburys is associated with only easter eggs . Its Hersheys all the way here!

The Onion quotient

There are algorithms out there which can write research papers some of which have also been accepted. There are also ways to extract topics from documents by analyzing the semantics of the content. Now what if I gave you a bunch of stuff from the Onion news? You would probably be able to figure out that it was fake and then again you might not. (Once I shared a link from the Onion believing it was real) So, what then should a machine do if it is asked to summarize or extract a topic from such a document? Does it come under the purview of intelligence to detect satire and humor? Anyway, me and my cuz are working on a speller (software that can correct spelling errors). So below is some gibberish which I conjured and has absolutely nothing to do with what we are doing. At a glance you can say that it is nonsense. But how should and how would a machine interpret it?

Since the beginning of time (or rather when early man started writing) correcting spelling errors has been one of the most insurmountable problems that mankind has faced. So perplexing is this problem that it has occupied the minds of many for centuries- philosophers, linguists, mathematicians and billboard sign writers. Over the centuries, there have been many who have come tantalizingly close to solving this problem and ended up solving more simpler problems like the theory of relativity or the DNA model. We believe that Leibniz had an entire page of misspellings before him which somehow blossomed in his head into an idea that became known as calculus.

Our research has also shown that most if not all of the puzzling problems and events have underpinnings in spell corrections. The Pyramids at Giza for example were built by aliens, our study shows. A minor application of our algorithm on the misspelled Egyptian hieroglyphs at the Valley of the Kings makes it crystal clear. In a master stroke our algorithm solves both science and proves mythology by answering both the extinction of the dinosaurs and the existence of wizards. A powerful spell was accidentally misspelled by a wizard causing the end of the mesozoic era. From the time paradox problem to procrastination, it answers all. We claim that string theory is nothing but an extension of our algorithm with the different dimensions being the permutations of the words. Finally, our algorithm deals a coup de grace to all other approaches to all other problems by answering the question- “the answer to life,the universe and everything”.

We propose a novel approach to spell correction based on a quasi random distribution of hip hop culture in a Hilbert space. A socio-anthropic metric is used to normalize the misspelled word. The entropy of the resulting distribution is then mapped to a fractal representation of a possum’s brain. If you still think this is worth reading then do so. This approach was a result of much fine tuning which resulted after we came across the unique way in which Master Yoda conversed. Thanks to him, we were able to refine our algorithm to deal with ngram corrections.Further information on our speller will be made available soon, once we start getting results from the Large Hadron Collider.

To the home of the brave…

I could see No man’s land below me. Stretching forever in every direction were milky white clouds which at first glance could easily deceive you into thinking you were over the Antarctic. I was on cloud nine…or rather well above cloud nine in every sense. The Airbus A330-200, Air France was cruising at well above 30,000 ft  somewhere over Europe. My eyes were glued to the window alternating between the ocean of clouds and the enormous wing to my right. I still couldn’t digest the fact that I was actually in an aircraft. The craze to fly took root when I was a kid. It started with a few foolish attempts to jump from the sofa by flapping my arms followed later by collecting photos of all kinds of aircrafts to attending airshows and cataloging every damn nomenclature related to planes. To this day the fascination is still firmly ingrained but so long and so wild was this fascination that to imagine myself in a plane became the stuff of dreams.  I had boarded the flight at 01:45 am on August 6th. En route to the airport I had felt only excitement (well with a tinge of nervousness). And yes a bit sad. Sad that I would have to bid goodbye to my family. At the airport this feeling is accentuated by the fact that an ominous glass partition separates you from your loved ones impairing you from saying a proper goodbye.

The road to BIA is awesome and so is the airport. I reached the airport at the customary “3 hours before take-off time” and went through the check-in without any hassle.  The first thing that you notice when you enter the aircraft is that the aisle is ridiculously narrow (and so is the loo for that matter). I squeezed into my seat next to the window and eased myself out of the 3  shirts that I was wearing(so that I could carry them without breaking the weight limit) and dumped them into my backpack. I could hear the engines warming up and a few unintelligible phrases in french from the pilot as I buckled my seat belt. A small jolt- the plane had started taxiing. After a few boring minutes the sound increased in intensity and with a jerk the plane was off the ground. I could see specks of light appearing below me as the plane gained height rapidly and glided over that glorious city called Bangalore. Hardly had my feeling of awe at having experienced my first take off passed when a smiling air hostess came with a tray of food- Yogurt, sandwich, fruits and juice. Munching my sandwich I surfed through the movies on the television screen. The Departed, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland were some of them. I saw a bit of all and dozed off to sleep.

When I woke up it was around 09:00am. The next few hours were spent in digging into the breakfast and glancing at the endless stretch of space outside. Now and then the flaps on the wings opened up as the flight changed direction and descended. As we approached Paris, I could see crisscrossing contrails and a few aircrafts go by. Below were fields in patches of dark and light green with roads and railway lines bisecting each other.  Wow! I was actually over Europe. Geographic Teleportation- a term which I just coined- refers to fantasizing yourself in distant places. In my case this was an obsession courtesy of all the movies and books that I had devoured. The West in general and Europe in particular held a powerful sway over me.

The plane touched down at CDG (12:00 noon IST and 08:30 Paris time),with a jarring noise and taxied to terminal 2C. A shuttle took us to terminal 2E where we had to board our next flight to Atlanta at 11:30 am Paris time. At the  security scan we had to place our shoes, wallets and other stuff on a tray and pass them through a scanner. The terminal was like a huge glass house with gates on one side. After ogling at the playstation consoles and duty free store we passed an uneventful 2 hours or so. The Boeing 747 to Atlanta did not have any screens and was a boring flight except for the food which had an excellent Indian dish. Not having a window seat this time I missed most of the view. Long before the ETA, I could see land below. I had expected to see the Ocean assuming that the path would be over the Atlantic and then to the USA. As it turned out the flight went over Canada and made a turn downwards towards Georgia.

I was a bit skeptical about getting my suitcases without any hassle at the checked baggage retrieval area. But pretty soon I could see Calvin&Hobbes and Spiderman (I had stuck these two stickers on my suitcases for easy identification) bobbing up and down towards me on the conveyor belt.  So no problem there. Apart from introducing me to a new word called “concourse”  I also realized I would have to redefine the word gigantic when I saw the Atlanta airport.  Everything was huge. The escalators seemed to go on forever. Stairways to heaven. A high speed mini train took us to the other end of the airport where we had to meet a friend. I made a call home to inform my parents that I was now in the USA! After the usual security scan, I had to answer a few annoying questions from the Immigration officer. Here’s a jist:
Me: Hi, Good morning.
Officer: What are u planning to do here?
Me: Master’s Comp science etc.
Officer: U like Florida?
Me: I hope I like it.
Officer: U been here before?
Me: no sir, this is my first.
Officer: U planning to settle here?
Me: No sir, planning to go back  and work. have a few companies in my mind back home where I would like to work.
Officer: Well, a lot of ppl settle here. Yup. I bet u are gonna do it too.
Me: non committal.
Officer: U married?
Me: No sir.
Officer: Well, u might find a girl here and settle. It happens all the time. I have seen it.
Me: non committal
Officer: Electricity is pretty steady here, unlike in India.
Me: Its much better now sir.
Officer: Well not in all the places.
Me: non committal
Officer: OK then, u are good to go.

Terminal S- where we had to board a Delta to Gainesville was like a mall by itself with a wide range of eating joints and book stores. After hunting desperately for a vegetarian option, I singled in on the cheapest food that I could lay my hands on- French fries.  The Delta flight was delayed for 3 hours- initially because of a storm and then because the flight was ready but the crew was nowhere in sight! At around 22:30 EST we finally boarded the Delta to Gainesville. Gainesville regional was (and still is) a very small airport and students from the Indian grad student association were there to pick us up. It was well over midnight when we reached a place where we could crash.

I know this is maddeningly lengthy and reads more like a journal than a blog, but I had to pen all this down. It’s almost a month now since I came to the US of A. Loads to write still.

And Oh yeah, toilet paper sucks!!!!

The Longest ride…

Last year (sometime in August-September), I was in a state of cycling frenzy having watched the Tour De France (TDF) in July. I have been following TDF for some years now. The attraction initially I guess was a combination of the scenic beauty of Europe through which the riders went and a superb commentary team. But of course there is much more to professional cycling than that. To see men cycle for 200km and still have the wherewithal to attack by accelerating during the last few kms is a feat which will make you yearn to get on the saddle and torture yourself over long painful rides. And so I bought a cycle. A cycle with six gears. Not the light weight alloy kind. Those are expensive. Well over 10k. Mine was a regulation MTB but with 6 gears. My first hopes of me having a natural gift to cycle were dashed when I rode the bike from the cycle shop to my house- a distance of 6km- struggling to breathe and panting all the way. A terrible headache followed when I reached home and I crashed to bed straightaway.

The next day and every day after that I got up at 5:30 am and cycled. Four days later I cycled 25km. I was overjoyed. I wanted nothing better then, than to go on a long distance ride. I was hesitant to join the Bangalore bikers club. I thought I still wasn’t ready. Those guys go on really long rides. On Ayudha puja day I decided to go really really long. I started at 9:00Am. My destination was Anekal. The to and fro distance would at least be 60km.

I carried only a water bottle (1 ltr, fixed to my bike) for refreshment. The going was easy in the beginning and became tough towards the end (as is always the case) as I reached Anekal. The first signs that I was not meant to be an Armstrong or Contador was that my legs started feeling shaky. I cycled on, taking a sip now and then from my bottle. The music playing in my ears through my phone was killing me. I had limited memory in my phone and had cramped around 25 songs. So it was that I heard U2′s Vertigo, The saints are coming , Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken dreams, Rocky and Metallica’s Unforgiven over a zillion times (well obviously an exaggeration) in a loop. I managed to reach Anekal with sheer determination. The thought that I would have to cycle all the way back almost made me take up lodging in one of the small houses that I passed by.

I have had hallucinations when I was a kid- when I was dreadfully sick. Once (so my mom says) I got out of bed in the night and ran straight out till the gate howling while I was burning with fever. I had my next hallucination that day as I cycled back. I hallucinated about lying down in bed, with a cold bottle of juice with the fan running at full speed. All those locations which I had glimpsed at, all those beautiful trees which had made me marvel at the beauty of nature while I was cycling in the opposite direction, now made me wonder at the egg headed activists who wanted trees. Trees! All I could see was trees. In part my enthusiasm for cycling had been triggered by my childhood friend. Both of us agreed that to get down from the saddle (either to take a break or push the cycle) during a ride was criminal and would utterly destroy the essence of cycling. I had been sitting for quite sometime now having parked my cycle near the road, watching vehicles pass me and reflected on that conversation. The rhythm was broken. I felt ashamed. But a part of me asked me to screw the essence of cycling and sit there for ever. The Armstrong in me finally urged me to get on the bike and continue. I was damn tired now. Not even Rocky could have charged me up.

I was reaching Bannerghatta now. It was around 12:45. I was running out of water and energy. I saw a small house. They seemed to be performing puja. With no hesitation I went in and asked for some water. I must have looked dreadful for they looked at me longer than was necessary. I could feel dust on my forehead and my hair. I was sweating profusely. Kind people they were. In addition to water they gave me some sweets which I gobbled up right away. By now I was sick of cycling. I was even ready to get into an auto and go home. Autos were sparse that day cos of Ayudha Puja. Finally I found one and with some difficulty pushed my cycle in harshly and sat in a most uncomfortable position and headed home. I had fallen around 8km short according to my estimates. A long ride . A ride which pushed me to Vertigo and hallucinations and through boulevards of broken dreams. And The saints came alright. I saw myself in heaven more than once that day.

Feats of courage

An obvious fact/theory/perception when voiced from many quarters over a period of time becomes cliched and tends to breed views which directly oppose or undermines the fact. While questioning the veracity of events is very important and leads us to uncover the truth, arguing against indisputable facts is empty banter. It is very fashionable though to put forth views which are in complete conflict with the prevailing perceptions. An event like the Holocaust for example with abundant facts to support it (concentration camps, accounts by survivors,confessions by Nazis etc) has its own circle of deniers. A similar example is that of Israel. Israel is often talked about in reverence and admiration when it comes to its hard nosed approach towards its adversaries. Again there are those who downplay Israel’s brave stance against its Arab neighbors and its policy towards its terrorists. Yes, sometimes people love to exaggerate and glorify events. But even if you were to strip all those events which have a remote smudge of exaggeration you cannot deny facts. The 1948 war, the 1967 war, Entebbe, Osirak, the retribution after Munich and to some extent the Yom Kippur war- all these are real events and there is no downplaying them.

The 1948 war was the war of independence. Israel fought against the Arab nations of Syria, Jordan, Egypt with Iraq sending in its army as well. None of these nations were ready to recognize Israel. Israel put on a fierce fight with its ill equipped underground force to gain a shaky independence.

The 1967 war or the Six day war was preempted by Israel but was provoked by Syria, Egypt and the Soviet union to some extent. Tensions began when Israel drew water from the River Jordan and Syria retaliated by attacking settlements near the Golan heights. Egypt removed the UN peace keeping forces from the Sinai. The Soviet union to gain a foothold against the US in the middle east had long been supplying the likes of Syria and Egypt with armaments. Contrary to popular belief the US was very reluctant to supply arms to Israel as it was felt it would tilt the Arabs towards the Soviets. The USSR fed false information to Syria that Israeli troops were amassing along its borders. Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran( an important route for many ships) to show solidarity with the Syrians and shook all the Arab states into a frenzy of anti-Israeli rhetoric. Nasser thus assumed leadership of the Arab states against the “Zionist regime”. In the aftermath of the Suez crisis in 1956 , Israel was made to withdraw from the Sinai and was promised that the Straits of Tiran would not be closed to it. Now with Nasser having closed the straits and amassing huge troops, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt and Syria. Jordan against Israel’s warning entered the war. In a war of Six days which stunned the world, Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan and occupied the whole of Sinai, the Golan heights and the Old city of Jerusalem. There was much rejoicing for it seemed as if the prophecy had been fulfilled. The Jews had returned to their holy land. A few months later all the Arab states passed the Khartoum resolution with three No’s- No peace, No recognition, No negotiation (w.r.t Israel).

Entebbe was an audacious hostage rescue operation. In 1976, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (supported by Idi Amin) hijacked a plane starting from Tel Aviv bound for France and held it captive at the Entebbe airport in Uganda. Israel planned and executed a rescue operation by sending in covert troops to the airport and airlifted the hostages. The operation took barely an hour.

I have written about Munich in one of my earlier posts. In retribution to the killing of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel launched two operations- Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God. Operation Spring of Youth was more audacious then Entebbe. Israeli agents -some of them dressed as women- landed in Beirut and killed leaders of the PLO (some of them responsible for the Munich massacre) and bombed a building housing PLO militants. Operation Wrath of God took place over a period of several years in an attempt to pursue and kill all the perpetrators of Munich. The main objective of the above operations seemed to have been to strike fear into the hearts of the terrorists. It was not mere vengeance.

Israel has fought for its very existence since its independence and this is one reason why Israel has been so aggressive and fought like a cornered cat. No other nation has its very existence questioned. I am not anti-Islamic nor do I support everything that Israel does. It is very unfortunate that the Palestinian refugee problem doesn’t seem like it will see the light of day anytime soon. I believe that Israel has shown the world that a tiny strip of land  can courageously hold its own amidst such hatred and even make peace with its neighbors by being persistent.

Tech talks

I used to love programming when I was in college and still do. Having started with C and C++, I fell in love with Java- that language where everything is built in with so many layers of abstraction that the developer only has to have a vague idea as to what the APIs do and of course everything is just a ctrl+space away(if you are using eclipse). I have to accept now- Java is not my cup of tea. The language has plenty of jargon though and hence plenty of scope for extensibility when it comes to creating silly humor. Here’s some which I can think of-

1. A guy goes to a function and spends some time there. After a long time he finds that he is not able to come out of the function. Why? – No one asked him to return

2. A student goes to an art class. He finds that none of the students there have a pencil, paper or a paintbrush. Surprised he asks the guy sitting next to him- “How come you guys don’t carry any stuff?”. The guy says- “This is an Abstract Art Class. No objects allowed”.

3. Guy1-”Hey you heard what happened to Joey? “
Guy2-”What? “
Guy1-”He was filling this form for an interview. They asked him his religion and they had check boxes corresponding to Jew,Christian etc.
Joey is an atheist. Finding no option the genius wrote something like – “(new Checkbox(“Atheist”)).setSelected(true)” next to the other check boxes.

4. “C’mon Dave, where do we hide the loot. I am not able to think straight.”
Dave (with his eyes shining)- “Ok, I have done this before. Gimme the cash. See, I write private on all of them and then we dump them in this here auditorium down the lane. And when a public function happens there we get our hands on them.”

5. Guy1- “Hey, what’s your dog called?”
Guy2- “Actually I have a lot of dogs.I got tired of naming them. So I have a list for them. They are like members of my family so I call them- myDogList. So when I call them I say something like- “Heel myDogList.get(i)”.

6. In the future when machines take over the world and recreate Forrest Gump-
Class Forrest extends Thread {
public void run(){
system.out.println(“Run Forrest Run,Run Forrest Run”);
//Forrest runs here
}
}
And of course Forrest f=new Forrest();
f.start();

7. Criminal- “For the last time, I am warning you, hand me over your wallet or I will fire. I am not kidding.”
Guy-”Take your best shot”
Criminal pulls the trigger but nothing happens. “Oh damn, my gun is not registered for fire events“

8. When Java jargons meet-
Interface -”Hey hey how come you get to do all the action stuff eh?”
Impl- “Not all the stuff goddamn it. Some times (with emotion) they extend me. They say they are protecting me. But I know they just want to override me.”
Collections- “I am sick of HashMaps getting all the action. They get to have keys and objects”
Iterator- “Look at me slogging all day going over all you goddamn lists and maps and when I am done you just leave(exit) without saying goodbye”
final- “I am an oxymoron. Final my foot. They put me before every variable”
Variable-”Hey don’t you bring us into this. We don’t even get to choose
our names. Some possessive humans prefix our names with “my“. Sadists. They give us data and just when you think you might make it to the end of the program they take it away and give us null“
Class(hysterically weeping when the program is about to end)- “No you can’t do this. My objects, my objects. Please, for the love of God don’t, you will destroy my….(program exits).Oh well, I will wait for “new()” again”
finally- “Will they ever choose me before catch and try?”
i-” I have the power…………”

The return of the kings

Posting here after a long time. I went into one of those lulls when you can’t think of anything worthwhile to write. I am feeling a bit sleepy as I write this courtesy of the champions league semi-final between Barcelona and Chelsea which I watched yesterday or rather early today morning. It was at least worth the wait unlike all those  matches which Arsenal lost despite me cheering them on late into the night and into the wee hours.

Any soccer fan who loves free flowing attacking football interspersed with  lovely first touches will agree that justice was done today when Barca beat Chelsea. There seems to be a jinx on teams like Arsenal and Holland which makes sure that they mesmerize the audience with their play but refrain from winning when it matters. It is very logical for an Arsenal supporter to have Barcelona as the fall back team to support and so I cheered Barca today when they played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

I actually switched on the TV pretty early to watch The Fellowship of the   Rings. All the three movies in the LOTR trilogy are masterpieces of film making and will probably be hard to beat for years to come. The movies have a superb cast, awesome visual effects and a sound track which will never fail to give you goosebumps. I was toggling between the movie and the match, but the match didn’t seem to be very interesting with Chelsea netting the first goal. When the movie ended I switched to the match with about 30 minutes to go. Barcelona were attacking with their silky passes but they failed to make any in roads into the Chelsea defense. Chelsea on the other hand were frequenting Barcelona’s penalty box.  Barcelona still had the majority of the possession and some luck too with the referee  ruling out some valid hand ball  cries from Chelsea inside Barca’s penalty area. Abidal was sent off when the referee judged that he had  tripped Anelka.

Barcelona continued to attack with ten men. Messi and Iniesta exchanged   good passes and released Alves on the right whose crosses were frustratingly poor. I watched with bated breath hoping that Barca would net that crucial away goal and prevent an all English final.

When Iniesta scored in the 3rd minute of stoppage, I was overjoyed for yet another boring English side was knocked out and the kings of soccer had returned.