General advice, though not mine

Flipped this in one of the SUNYSB prof's (Tzi-cker Chiueh) home page.

- Read widely
- Learn to communicate well
- Be a team player
- The name of the game for being a graduate student is efficient time management
- Always make plans ahead
- Talk to knowledgeable people regularly
- Practice solving problems and building systems whenever you have a chance

May be these are very simple facts, but when you think again these would work out really well in improving yourself.

A Beautiful Mind

The four Oscar winning movie in which the life of the renowned mathematician Dr. John Forbes Nash is delineated splendidly. I have heard about this movie and was looking forward to see this for a long time. I didn't know anything about either the story or Dr. Nash before I saw the movie. But spent some time reading about Nash in the Wikipedia after I saw movie.

Yesterday I got a good print of this movie from my one of my colleagues. I started to watch the movie in the office and it was quite gripping that I watched the initial 10 to 15 minutes there but I had to stop and get back to my work. Yesterday late night after some of my personal works are done, I started again.

Russel Crowe has done a beautiful job in his body language. I have seen Russel's performance in the movie Gladitor where he acts as a warrior. The character in this movie is just opposite to that. He plays the role of a recluse mathematician playing with numbers, greek alphabets and trying to come up with some weird algorithms. The supporting role (Nash's wife) is played by Jennifer Connelly. She looked gorgeous and at the later she plays a very responsible role. The restaurant scene where she tries to give Dr. Nash a verifiable proof for her love and long time commitment was pretty. And in the later part of the movie, she beautifully plays a supportive role to her paranoid husband. Apart from these two characters, I liked the role of Josh Lucas. I don't know why, but he was charismatic in his speech and expressions during the early Princeton days in the movie.

The movie as a whole was neat and the screenplay, for sure, will spellbound you to the plot.

IMDb link - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/

Convoluted mess!

Sometimes I do become one of the reasons for my barber's poor business :P

Sick (by)(of) surfeit!

My current GTalk status flashes (and would be the same for some more days too) "Sick of Surfeit!". Initially I had "Sick by surfiet!" and later changed that too "Sick of surfeit!". That was due to my senior Cne. He gave a pure pedantic explanation on why it should be "Sick of surfeit!" which urged me to change the status message.

Read the conversation we had to understand the difference between 'by' and 'of'!!

5:54 PM Cne: HMM....is that sick "by" surfeit? or sick "of" surfeit?

5:55 PM me: Theriyala-yae

5:56 PM I'm heavy loaded with stuffs, adhan dhan solla vandhen

5:57 PM If you can explain me the diff, that would be good :)

6:00 PM Cne: its just the difference between of and by..

simple!!

me: ha ha not that simple, ennaku context-la difference sollunga

Cne: see, just imagine ur in google..

i mean u work in google..

6:01 PM me: okie

Cne: when u've just joined...

6:02 PM u'll be amazed at all the free eatables lying around and u start a free for all!!

u eat so much that u gget a bellyache!!

thats sick "by" surfeit!!

6:03 PM and if u've been there for 2-3 years, u get tired of all the free things and get bored with them...the word "free" also loses its charm...since ur making enough to not worry abt money..

then, thats sick "of" surfeit!!

and of course, the analogy of Google can be replaced by ur company!!

6:04 PM which is true i guess!!

me: Okie got it

to an extent it is

Cne: what say?

tthe "by" is a simple matter....can be solved easily..

6:05 PM but sick "of": has phiolosophical undertones..

which require lots of work to solve!!

6:06 PM me: Ok

I think I fall into the latter category. Will change the status!

See how negligent I have been in my English grammar courses during my school days ;)

Turned a dilettante photographer!

I have been planning to buy a camera for a long time. And at last decided to buy Canon PowerShot S3 IS.

I have already started dabbling with my camera :)

I'm currently inspired by these photographers (Prasanna, Sankar and Senthil). The former two are my own cousins, so I expect some hereditary pattern of good photography skills in my blood too :P

Checkout their web albums,
Prasanna: http://www.flickr.com/photos/without_flash/
Sankar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sankars/
Senthil: http://www.flickr.com/photos/senti/

Innovative teaching methodology

Salutation

The good times is gonna end in few days! Our current first citizen of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam is going to get down from his office on 25th July. And I'm very sad that India is losing a great visionary leader and it is pretty clear from the current presidential elections that it will take some years to see such a dynamic, charismatic and phlegmatic personality.

Times before Dr. Kalam took office, from what I perceive, the President of India is the one who lives in Rashtrapati Bhavan, signs of some documents and more importantly the one who gives a talk on Doordhasan television during the Independence/Republic day. Dr. Kalam has given a new perspective to this esteemed position. I have never seen a President of India stepping out from Rashtrapati Bhavan and meeting people and discussing their problems, meeting students and giving them encouraging talks and even meeting industrialists. His simple mantra "dream!" has made Indians to think big. He even has a big vision/dream to make India a full-fledged developed nation by 2020.

It always feels good when you are led by such an energetic person. Even though it is sad that Dr. Kalam is going to step down from the post of President, it feels so good that he going to return to Anna University back as a professor/researcher. Currently it is a big question on how far Ms. Prathiba Patil is going to execute her prerogatives.

.. and finally to the motive of this post, a great salutation to Dr. Kalam for his great deeds towards the development of India.

Aesthetic!

For sure, you will be infatuated with this music, dance and ofcourse the performer. Absolutely gorgeous.

http://www.youtopia.in/viewfile/4b57dd4bc29c669a8ff62bcd1a623413

She is a Pakistani based pop singer, Annie Ali Khan. This song (Mahiya) is from her album Princess.