Went for a football (soccer) game between German club Bayern München and the English club Manchester United at the newly renovated Soldier Field. I had never been to a pro football game before, and was really looking forward to this. Unfortunately, being a friendly game, neither team had its best players, and no one was trying really hard. The game ended on a 0-0, and was decided by a rather unexciting penalty shootout. Unexciting because no one really cared - it was simply a way of getting the 58,000+ spectators to spend more money on food and beer while they waited for the game to end. It was fun, I just hope the game had been more competitive.
Soldier field on the other hand was far from being a disappointment. I havent seen too many stadiums, but this is probably one of the best I’ll ever get to see. The thing is huge (seating capacity of 60k+). Its location right between lake Michigan and Lake Shore Drive make is absolutely perfect. Even better is the architecture. While some may not like the new design, I thought it was brilliant. The stadium is basically a cross between early twentieth century architecture and modern UFO-style building style. Parts of the stadium were built as early as 1924, while a major chunk was added in the last couple of years. Amazing blend of old and new architecture.
While I was there, I also got a chance to play with the awesome $800 Nikkor AF 180mm f/2.8 ED-IF lens. While the focal length was still probably a bit too small, this lens made taking photos a real pleasure (as opposed to my humble Nikkor 50mm, which reduced the players to little ants). I’ll try to post some pictures soon…
Quals (qualifiers) - A mysterious, largely unexplainable, dreaded, and scary exam that lets a graduate student's committee decide in an hour, if she is good enough to conduct research over a period of about five years and get a PhD.
I passed my quals today.
The other really good thing is that as a result of all the reading I did in its preperation, I think I have a much better idea of what exactly I want to focus my research on - both in the short, and long term.
The only discernable immediate effect is that I can now apply for a closed study carrel in the library (so what if there is an eight month waiting list for that)!
I have a bunch of GMail invites. So for the seven and a half regular readers of this blog, here is your chance to finally get something useful out of it. Post a comment here with your email address and I'll send you an invite.
No purchase necessary. Offer valid while stocks last.
Update: I've exhausted my supply of invites. See comments for other possible sources.
Starlab was a privately funded research lab that was supposed to work on technologies that become practical in decades or centuries. Located in Brussels, Belgium, it had over 70 of the world's best researchers working on crazy and sci-fi stuff such as time travel, artificial brain building, creating wealth, quantum consciousness, building serendipity, art, and even galactic civilisations!
Our role is to show the feasibility of crazy ideas. Starlab is a crazy company where you can realise crazy things without limitations. You can get people to back an idea without worrying about whether it will fit a particular business plan. At Starlab there is no risk of being conservative, because we are inventing the future. - Ronald Schrooten
On June 21, 2001, thanks to the dotcom burst, the company filed for bankruptcy, and ceased to exist :(
More info and links here
Today's Garfield pretty much sums up my attitude towards this blog of late...
I guess I need more practice at ignoring ;)
Anyone remotely associated with Comptuer Science should know about Dr. Edsger W. Dijkstra. Here I reproduce his famous “advice to a young scientist”. (The original PDF is available here.)
Interesting word. Came across this word while reading about popular halftoning algorithms. Here is what it means:
boustrophedon - An ancient method of writing in which the lines are inscribed alternately from right to left and from left to right.
Apparently halftoning algorithms improve greatly if images are processed in a boustrophedonic pattern instead of simple scanlines...
I recently came across Head Fi. This site has a bunch of discussion forums for talking about all music related hardware. This includes headphones, amplifiers, cables, portable players, etc. The people at this place are crazy! A $100 pair of headphones is considered cheap and pretty useless. Listening to music without a portable headphone amplifier is a strict no-no. $1500 is considered a tight budget for a decent sound system. CDs are considered evil, and real quality lies in vinyl (forget about the oh so lossy MP3s). This is the world of the hard-core audiophiles.
Based on recommendations here, I decided to get a pair for the "ultra cheap" Koss KSC-35. These are widely regarded as the best pair of headphones under $100, and they cost only $30. After using these for about a month, I am really impressed. At first I was concerned by the seemingly soft bass, but after the burn-in period, I think it is far better than what I had expected. The music is sounds more alive. They seem to be better than my older Sennheiser HD-497, and are far more portable.
For some wierd reason Koss decided to discontinue this model though. It was replaced by worse sounding and ugly looking KSC-50. This is still available on the Koss website until they sell out. I've heard of people buying them by the truckload so that they can continue using them forever!
It is hard to imagine how the sound quality can improve further. But then thats what I always thought when I was using my crappy Sony headphones. Up next for me is a little DIY project to build a CMoy headphone amplifier, followed by a PIMETA, or a MINT. And then the Sennheiser HD 600. I can dream, cant I?
I guess my previous post calls for some explaination. So instead of adding a comment, here is another post...
What I posted in the previous post is probably the best way I could describe it from the limited knowledge I have about the stock exchange.
I guess the main problem I have with stock exchanges and shares is that I dont quite understand what sets the price of a share. Again, from what I have seen, the stock price has absolutely nothing to do with how well/poorly a company is doing. Sometimes the potential that the company has is a contributing factor, but this is rather rare. What really baffles me is how even the most intelligent and knowledgeable person (even those who work high up in the company) can not predict with any degree of certainty how the share would perform in the coming weeks.
The best way I have come to understand this is (like a friend once put it), collective foolishness. If the price is going up, the stock must be good. Who cares what the company does!
Then there is that even more fundamental problem of why trade stocks in the first place. Why would anyone want to pay several hundred times the cover price of a share? The only rationale I understand is the hope that the "price" would increase in the future. Its not like the person would be getting huge dividends on the share she owns. The person simply depends on the collective foolishness of the population and his gut feeling when she decides to purchase any shares.
What value does a stock exchange add to the society? No wealth is generated. Wealth only exchanges hands. Why have a stock exchange at all?
The only semi-plausible explaination I have is that the stock exchange is an incentive for the public to invest in a company. This makes some sense. If there is no real incentive to invest, why would someone want to invest in a company! Thanks to the stock exchange, and the collective foolishness, there is a possibility that the price of the stock would increase in the future, and someone who invested wisely stands to gain a lot. But again, the collective foolishness is a primary requirement for it to work right.
One thing I should mention is that I have nothing against stocks/shares as such. Having shares and going public to raise money is great. This is what helps companies to grow. What I dont understand is the Stock Exchange.
Also, I must say that I am not at all qualified to talk about stocks, finance, and other such stuff. I barely manage to get my IT returns filed on time! I am quite sure that I am making a fundamental mistake somewhere. I would love to be proven wrong.
One last thing. An interesting movie about predicting the stock exchange behavior is Pi by one of my favourite directors. (you knew a movie reference was coming!)
The collective foolishness popularly known as a Stock Exchange is flawed by definition. Any better and it would be called a Grocerry Store.
It takes a genius to crack into it and exploit its imperfections.
Well, another year has come and gone. Why does each subsequent year seem to have gone by faster than the previous ones?!
Happy New Year!
MT is awesome!! Just finished setting it up, and am ready for my first post now. Also configured the archiving options, thanks to NSLog and others.
Still playing around with it. Looks like a huge time sink though ;)
Anyways, now that I have the basic thing up and running, I can work on making it look prettier as and when I find the time.
I'll probably soon post a review of 21 grams, and A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin. In a word, both were awesome!