Friday, June 29, 2012

Hazelwood, MO

Seems like the entire city has been being made from the scratch. It's next to impossible to find any place to stay in Hazelwood. Construction workers are everywhere, they have taken every rooms in every hotel. I have no idea what they are building but it seems like the city is being made again. I did little research and read some reviews online and interestingly found this city is always like that. All hotels and suits are always inundated by construction workers, interesting, huh!

Summer interns may have trouble finding appropriate place to live. The extended stay hotels are not up to the mark and regular apartments do not rent for short period of time. They have something what they called extended stay hotels and I haven't seen so many extended stay hotel in one small city before and their working procedure is kind of weird. This morning I went to a front desk officer and ask for the rate and she said she doesn't know the rate and their corporate office knows the rate; I called corporate office and they said they don't know the rate, local hotel know the rate and they transferred me to the local office and we (me and front desk officer) talk to each other sitting next to each other and I got the rate (oops!).

It's an haphazard city and everything looks new in this city (No wonder, so many construction workers are here and after all they are building something); and every arrangement looks temporary. I wonder does anyone live here permanently!? This city smells like new. It has one central road (Lindbergh Boulevard) and every thing is right by the Lindbergh Boulevard. 

Since plenty of people live here on temporary basis, the hotel prices are kind of unpredictable. One has to shop around to find a plausible deal and the price varies within an hour; and most importantly one should not trust any hotel manager here. They are crazy and if you travel here for extended stay they got kind of confused what value you should be offered. Because one way they get the guarantee for a long time customer on the other way they loose short time big money rent. I would not be surprised if you get a price from hotel manager and get price and then you go back to your car, came back with your stuff and that price disappear. 

People seem busier than Norman and traffic is kind of interesting. They has a extra lane for u-turn! that's kind of new for me. I haven't explored the city yet and taken any pictures. Hopefully I'll have some time after today to explore it.  

Friday, June 22, 2012

What if I were a mobster?

When I was a kid I had dream I wanted to be a mobster. I don't how that idea came into my mind but I had a feeling that only mobsters are living their life in full extend. I was fascinated with the idea about roaming around with lot of followers and doing whatever one likes to do. Unfortunately I had a fall back and I became a engineer; but I still wonder what makes me think that mobster could be a way of life. Maybe I didn't understand the meaning of being a mobster, well that not excusable; because I didn't know the meaning of anything! Then why did I choose mobster? Do they look like happy? Well I never met one who is happy. Life is a world full lies and blood can be anything but happy. Am I happy? Well practically nobody is. The idea that I wanted to be a mobster used to frightened me; because there could be some other kids who still hold that idea and working in their way. Now, it does not; because now feel mobsters are no more harmful than some so called ordinary guy in our society (they are interesting indeed). 

Anyway, let's do a thought experiment,

What if I were a mobster?
I would rob people, do business in black market, kill some, etc.

How do I feel about it?
Probably I wouldn't feel bad; because I suppose I would always be surrounded by people like me and I would probably seek comfort in the idea that I have to be tough to survive in this world.

What would be my goal then?
I think I would think of being bigger mobster.
What if I were the biggest of them?
I would probably think of earning more money. (! that's what we all do in all professions)

What would be in my wish list?
I think I'll quit some day! 

Whom would I love most?
The people I still do.

Well it's not going well, let's call it quit.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Creationism is a scientific theory!

A youtube video popped up in the recommended video list today: 100 reasons why evolution is stupid. A guy I don't his name questioned the idea of theory of evolution and Big bang theory. It is not the video that interest me a whole lot, rather it the related video that interests me even more. it looks like another interesting theory came up from related video called "Creationism." Even more interesting than that some them actually claimed that it is a theory like theory of evolution, even beyond that it is a scientific theory! what!? Did I hear right? Creationism is a scientific theory? I am believer of the idea that sometimes science can be a religion; yes it happened many times in history. Sometimes some scientists are so obsessed with an idea that they sort of start believing that their theory is right unless it is proven wrong.

Anyway this is the first time I have heard that God is considered as a scientific idea. Wow! that's something beyond my imagination. Now I need to think about what I am doing! Interestingly I have listened some of their arguments and they seemed to be quite interesting. However, after listening to their ideas I kind of start thinking well this is not their fault. After little bit of thinking I kind of figure out an interesting fact, somehow scientists in the scientific community made the opportunity for them to call it a science. In last few years in some areas of science I have seen quite a few theory that spread over without any real experiments. Even worse some of them can neither prove nor disprove by any known experiments. If that is the case what is the difference between science and religion? I don't see any? If that is the case with some theories then no wonder creationism is a scientific theory. 

In a nutshell I am living in a world where I have to believe the idea of God is scientific; I believe I should not be surprised if I heard that Pope is the biggest scientist, wow!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Authoritative to Crowd-sourcing

Our world has changed enough in last one decade. I remember old days when books or articles were written by experts in respective fields; peer reviewed by other experts and finally published by publishers. It was an interesting form of elitism. Only the experts have says, only they can communicate to the people and authority was responsible to monitor the entire process and the quality of the work.

Our nice little world came a long way and now everyone has a say and everyone can reach to potentially infinite people. In a way it is democracy in information dissemination. We named it crowd-sourcing. I used to think crowd-sourcing actually deteriorates the quality of information. People who are expert in the field might have better information and so only good quality of information was wide spread because of filtering process. Now anyone can say anything in different media and chances are high that information would spread as well. So as a user I am more vulnerable to crappy information. I hope many people would agree that finding appropriate source for any particular piece of information became very difficult. By appropriate source I mean a source that is peer reviewed and static.

But then I find another way of looking into the matter. Authority used to do the filter for us now we the users have to do our own filtration. Authority somehow decentralized the task to everyone and at the same time we are enjoying the beauty of democracy. I don’t know which approach is good but it is indeed an interesting era for information dissemination. I am just afraid that the later probably increased or task; isn’t it meant to be other way around?

Friday, June 1, 2012

Little Sahara, OK

We went for a quick camping last week. It was okay, I have never seen dunes before; so it was quite a surprise. I think I would try it again.