The computer, the cupping n the frustrations

Its funny how we (I mean 'I') have been addicted to modern gadgets and gizmos. There was a time I thought computers, for me, are only for sending emails (well, before I embarked upon applied math and matlab stuff). And there was a time I thought I wont be needing a mobile phone. Ok, the reason for this blog is about my old computer. It has started giving a lot of trouble, mouse not working, some of the important keyboard keys are not working ('a' for example). I just cant dump my comp and buy a new one as I am busy with my research. So instead of fixing the whole problem, I am trying to patch up my comp now n then when the problems arise.

But it is so frustrating when some small things goes out of order and creates so much tension. My mouse right button is not working, infact it has a brain of its own!. Hm, guess I have to part company with that and buy a new one. My sound driver cupped (read 'failed') so now I am living on borrowed music waves.


Apart from these small glitches, life goes on as usual. Here is my favorite song for this blogpost: Its by Radiohead, 'Paranoid Andriod', I love this song... awesome guitar work...

Latest happenings..

Been busy with research and hence the gap in blogging (or rambling should I say :)). Bytheway 'the god' in my blog title is not self created it was given to me as a nickname(!, I dont want to go into the delicate things related to it :P) here in iitm. Oh, I am sorry, the full nick has something to do with 'bulb' and 'god', again I can't divulge the things happened to trigger these keywords.

The frequency of blog posting will be less from now on as my research work comes to the climatic end, nevertheless I'll try posting as often I can and as n whn something happens.

My favorite song for this post is: Linkin Park's "leave out all the rest"

It contains the following lines...

"When my time comes, forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
Don't resent me, and when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory, leave out all the rest..."

Me n my anger management :P

Watched 'Anger management', well, this is the second time I was watching this movie actually, 'was bored n wanted a comedy movie to chill out. I could not find a movie which I have not watched (obviously! at this rate I will finish like thousands!! :D), so settled for it. Then a related discussion ensued, I had with my friends about how much angry I get. Or do I get angry at all?. I used get angry and hot blooded when I was in undergraduate, but still then my anger is not like 'I will kill you' type, in fact I wont even shout, but I will become serious and my way of showing my anger is different. Maybe like Adam Sandler in the movie :-) (grrrrrr only... but wont let it out), there was one time when I could not control my anger (years back, way back) n I realized that I was pacing up n down like a caged lion. Bytheway my topic is not about frustration its about getting angry at/about somebody/something.

In the same discussion one of my friend said, one should not control anger n it should come out...hm...Hey, 'm a good guy no?...so I wont shout naturally or is it becoz I want to show-off like ''m a soft guy who never gets angry?'.. hm...very debatable and contentious issue :-)..ok, enough self-reflection and soul searching for one blog ;-). So how much angry do u get? :P :P :P

My favorite song for this post is: Rabbi Shergill's 'Bulla ki Jaana Maen Kaun' (meaning, Bulla asks 'who am I'). I also had the pleasure of hearing this song sung by my punjabi friend who explained me each and every line of this awesome song (video version also contains words, watch it :-)).

Jai ho n I wanna be a Rockstar!

Slumdog Millionaire swept away 8 Oscars. Hm.. thts a old news by now. My prediction about the Curious case of Benjamin Button did not come true (hey, its just a prediction! ;-) ). Anyway just like millions people I am also happy for the movie and for the Oscars to the music maestro Rahman. Kate Winslet got an Oscar for 'The Reader', I read the review at imdb.com, so planning to watch it in the near future.

On the research front, I have been busy with my latest paper about color images and its restoration. In this particular problem there is already a vast amount of literature exists, so proposing an algorithm which offers a stable and reliable way to restore highly noisy images is one of my main concern. As usual I am looking at some mathematically sound scheme (unlike the engineers do, for whom if the method works then its enough! ;-)). So its a bit lengthy project and I am at the finishing stage of it (I hope!). Let me see how it goes, anyway I am past my deadlines! (not surprisingly! :-)).

My favorite song for this post is: Nickelback's 'Rockstar' It was recommended by one of my friend, I liked it immediately.. I wanna be a rockstar... yaayaaa... :D

Benjamin Button n Oscars

Watched the Oscar nominee movie 'The curious case of Benjamin Button'. The movie is a little lengthy, but the thing which strikes me is that it looks like it is aimed at getting Oscars. By that I mean its purely an Oscar material with lots n lots of soapy moments which will be noticed when they vote for best movie etc. 'Slumdog Millionaire' well, it got a good chance of picking up an award but I think Button movie is tailored to get the best movie award. Lets see how it goes.

I was holding back my curiosity to watch these movies for sometime now, and then decided, Ok.. let me see them and wait how the Oscar awards go. I have watched the movie 'Milk' also. Apart from these Oscar stuff I have watched the movie 'The Machinist' (2004) and it was like a thunderbolt, really the acting (Christian Bale, The Batman star) was awesome from the starting. I highly recommend it just for his high fundae acting and for the climax which connects all the small details strewn all thro the movie into a perfect end. A word of caution though, watch it only when you are in a better mood, this movie is kind of negative, it is a little demanding and a dark movie. The opening scene was an absolute stunner and I thought it is going to be some creepy movie but I was wrong.

My favorite song for this post is: Bryan Adams classic '(Everything I do) I do it for you'

Curd Rice n Hard Rock :-)!

I went for the rock show yesterday, the final act in golden jubilee Saarang edition, after my dinner, which included curd rice!(yup, thats the fundae of the title :-)), I went to the OAT, met n joined with some of my pals. As usual with the rock shows, lot of dancing n head banging in the Opeth show, the point with Opeth is that their songs are mostly lengthy, with fits n starts. By that I mean its a masala mix of rock, slow tempo and again rock. So one is not sure when the song ends, junta clapped n became boisterous sometimes before the song ends! ;-) With this event my final saarang came to an end. I have no idea about the next year, in fact I don't even know where I will be after this semester.


Today went for blood donation, platelets basically. This was my second in giving platelets. The doc there is a kind and nice lady, who explained to me every nuances of blood transfusion stuff. Two and half litre of my blood went out and came back, she was telling me that even some 'educated' people are afraid of denoting this way, which is in fact less tiring and also medically safe. I guess the very notion of blood leaving our body and getting injected back is something many people do not agree with, kind of taboo in our society. But I found it better than giving the whole blood, you will be tired for one or two days with that, in this transfusion case tiredness is not much and I felt a certain sensation but nothing alarming. The doc was giving me calcium pills often to chew while I was lying there with two tubes connecting my arm to the transfusion machine. Its a bit lengthy process when compared to giving blood, around 2 hours, but the satisfaction of giving something to somebody is gratifying (that too can be life saving).

My favorite song for this blog is: Opeth song (still in saarang mood!) "Harvest", from the Blackwater Park album, as usual guitar stuff, hehehe :-).

The better and the worst!

"Things are always going to get worse before getting better" - The Dark Knight (Batman 2) dialogue. It is indeed the case and often repeats in my research (n in personal, yep something got better! :-)) life. "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." - Henri Poincare. I wait n wait for a flash, a eureka moment, but frustratingly it never comes to me when I expect. But nature loves to throw surprises, when I least expect I get brainstorms (u know the' bulb' moments). Now I am desperate for a flash as I have been struggling with an idea (key concept is not yet ready tho!) for color image processing.

My research seminar was over (oof, finally), so now I can concentrate on finishing the pending works. Saarang starts now, so I have to postpone the 'immediate' works (!) for few days ;-).

My favorite song for this blog is: well not a song exactly, its the free hugs campaign (it was famous two years back, voted one of the famous video in youtube site) video, the background song is very nice and I love the idea of free hugs... come near, I will give a hug for u :-)....hmmm....

The push I needed is finally here! :-)

I was hoping rather optimistically in the last post about a need for some push-up to windup my work. With renewed vigor and enthu I have started some more (!) research projects apart from some (a lot, in fact!) of my pending works. Saarang is around the corner so I want to finish my major (pending) works before it starts, so that I can enjoy it fully.

I have decided to try my hand at story writing, mainly SF (if you dont know what is SF, then probably you may not know a guy called Asimov and his three golden rules of robotics, use wikipedia my friend :-)...!) . I did try some SF a year back with an idea in mind (something about a mad scientist and intergalactic travel, teleportation, quantum dynamics, or along that lines... hehehe :D relax, I was trying to scare u guys with jargons! also I am cleverly avoiding telling u my story's core concept...), but abandoned it as I could not find a way to move forward and finish it with a big bang!!!. Perhaps I will dust-it-off that again, or I may write up a new story altogether.


I may even try the creative writing competition at Saarang website, see for example this:

'Klein bottles; Guns; Food Coupons'

Can you combine and connect these three seemingly random words into one piece? Note that there are no restriction about your writing, write anything, poetry, prose and plays ... One of the rule says: "Humour, wit and originality will be rewarded". Hmm... lemme see, I have got an idea about this one... Here are the other three anarchic words ;-) :

Schadenfreude; Shoes; Shame.
Lust; Caution; Butterflies
Armour; Massage; (FM) radio.

My favorite song for this post is by Opeth (Saarang special, ;-)): 'Death Whispered a Lullaby'
I luv this song... its now in my playlist of favorite songs... it contains some awesome guitar work...

The time is running out...

With all my deadlines looming large, I decided to put some more weight into my working style (no, that does not mean I will work hard or anything like that ;-), its just that if at all I work, I will work hard!, get it? :P). The time is running out for me with so much to do. Also there are some formalities I have to take care of. I hope I will be able to pulloff the tasks asap.

There is one thing in my mind which I was struggling to decide, and I think I will abandon it. My research work needs a push-up hopefully this new year will bring more good news for me.

My favorite song for this post is: Elvis Presley's 'A little less conversation' . I heard it many times before, but only recently downloaded it.



There is also a remix version (I think I have this song not the original version!):

Che Guevara style! ;-)

I have brushed up one of my old photo after Che Guevara's famous photo :-).

Che Guevara, his eyes framed by heavy brows, a single-starred beret pulled over his unruly hair, stares out of the shot with glowering intensity.

"Surya, his eyes shrunk by a smile, a single-word 'smile' written over his t-shirt, looks out of the shot with eternal happiness. " :-)

"His image will never die, his name will never die."

Read how this photo (Che's) is perhaps the only photo most used (misused) in the world here (@ the BBC site) : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7028598.stm

By-the-way, I have read about Che Guevara and his principles, it is ironic that his image is now commercially exploited. His image should represent a change, it is meant for rebellious people who fight against misconceptions and taboos of the stupid society we live in. (One of my friend was telling me about an accident where 3 small kids got run over by a car and people around them are just passing on as if they don't give a damn. He was aghast by that unfortunate incident. The society is not only stupid it is merciless and selfish! of course we ARE the society!!)

"Fight for a cause, Die for a cause" - after all everybody wants to live, but how many want to die for their ideals?

Update (05-01-08): After I have posted this blog, I found a latest news story in BBC about how Che's image and ideals still plays a major role in Latin american politics, read the full news here: 'Che's spirit burns on in Latin America'