Chronicle of a Mundane Life!

Photography: A hobby

2012-02-12T11:49:00.001-06:00

Photography is an expensive hobby? Why? You don't have to buy anything to take a new picture. This is not old film days; to take a picture all we need to do is point and shoot. So why is it expensive? Somehow to hobbyist it become gear oriented. Interestingly no one ever confess that this is so much gear oriented for hobbyist. Some of them are even in denial. They believe they can take good picture out of nothing.

I am computer programmer, my biggest hobby is coding. I don't hate computer. I never even claim I can make a program out of nothing. I don't know any programmer did. Why the photographers? One interesting explanation could they belief Photography is an art and being can artist they cannot rely on a technology too much. Anyway it's a classic debate of art and technology and I don't want to go in this direction. My point in all photographers owe to the technology and they should acknowledge it.

I have came across numerous vlogger claiming they will do a photo shoot with simply an iPhone. Well that's great why do you need all fancy stuff then? Well, most of them would probably agree because that will make their life little easier. huh! If I ask a photographer to take a picture of bokeh; they simply cannot do that with iPhone because it does not have enough depth of field. So what is the point of iPhone photography! Yes you can take certain kind of picture with iPhone and all they do is shoot that kind of photo with iPhone and try to establish they are great photographer all by themselves! huh! poor guys don't even know what they are claiming. There are all sort of things in all sort of purpose.

If I ask a photographer to take a picture of the surface of the moon; is it possible without proper lens! Nah, why do they claim that gear doesn't matter then. If ask them take a picture of a honey bee, could they do it without macro? I mean there are numerous gear for numerous reason and all have a purpose. Yes I agree may they don't need the best quality product. Well that's the case in every aspect of life. Any dress can serve the purpose but better dresses make us prettier. I never heard of anyone saying: you know in't not the dress, I can make it out of nothing. Poor photographers don't know what they are saying.

The hobbyists are worse. At the beginning most of them don't know what they want to do. So they buy even more stuff to do more things. Believe me not all kind of photography is everyone' forte, later they specialized on something and gears they bought before remain useless. And they late bravely comment, you know what gear doesn't matter! I can do a photography with my pairs of thumbs and index fingers.

Outliers: the story of success

2012-02-11T10:47:00.002-06:00

Wow! I have finished the entire book. Probably this is the only book I finished reading in last year. So you get kind of the idea of my reading practice! That's pretty amazing huh! I used to read a lot! I used to read 4/5 hours a day and now I read one book in entire year! That's an interesting statistics. I used to surf and write a lot too; and now I seldom even write! What the hell I am doing? I don't know! I don't even do the kind of research I used to do. So what the heck I am doing!!! I know photography took a fair share amount of time from my life and so is Lipa. Another fare share goes to cooking and stuff like that, anyway that's the reality. I am not too worried, all are part of life; and the whole thing makes me a little more Shiblee. bla... bla... bla.. Let's go straight to the point, the book "Outliers."

My research area is sort of outliers identification, so I borrowed this book to get kind of a feeling of other people (other than mathematicians) think about the outliers. I wanted to address the most fundamental question of my research, what makes something an outlier? Well I know I can through a bunch of mathematics but none of them makes sense unless the noun Outlier makes any sense to me. So, I borrowed the book. Well my intentions were not fully gratified however it was a good read. In fact it's a very good read.

However, there is a big catch. The book, kind of point out the idea of being a man. I had come up with the idea of I = f(t) quite some time before. What I essentially wanted to tell is, I am changing every moment of my life and every complicated dynamics like social, economical, etc are shaping me in course of being me. The book almost brought up the same idea. What we see in every people is a complex collision and cohesion of intricate dynamics. Every little things make a little difference and end the result is a entirely different story! Let's start with an example.

Think about Shiblee. Shiblee was brought up in a lower middle class family. His family always had enough to eat but that's it. They never had enough money to spend on anything else. So he grew up in a sort of poor neighborhood. Well at least back in those days his neighborhood was fairly poor. Shiblee's mother and father came to Dhaka city around seventies, I presume after independence. Let's start with his mother. His mother used to know a guy named Sekandar Ali. This is guy is particularly important in many respect, because Shiblee's mother used to live in his house when she first came to Dhaka. But he is even more important for another tiny reason. He is the most educated man known by Shiblee's mother and he was very successful in terms of monetary concern; and guess what when Shiblee's mom came into Dhaka and find Mr. Sekandar Ali's upper class lifestyle she was kind of moved. (important note: Shiblee's mom and Mr. Sekandar Ali almost have similar family background). Shiblee's mom almost immediately conclude this is the education that change Mr. Sekandar Ali's lifestyle. So, in rest of her life she was kind of hoping one day her son gonna be like that and the only way known to her was a better education! She almost in her entire life she did numerous sacrifices for her children better education. Now you can imagine how important education was in Shiblee's family and what an enormous push he felt. Apart from eating the only thing was a ritual in his family is study.

Shiblee however was not one of the brightest kind in the school. Certainly he was not living upto his parents expectation. However everything changed after class nine. The curriculum for nine and ten was massively redesigned during 1996/97. Every text book was re-written and those days the governing body was talking about redesigning the way science is taught. In that situation the teachers who were teaching for quite some years didn't know how to handle the new way of doing science. So people like Shiblee got a break. He was never good of collecting notes from previous years and doing the good in class. The teacher new well about old paper but they had no idea of how to correct their paper. They simply had no standard of which writing should get high score and which not because of the new science. So he did un-expectantly great in his SSC and finally become interested about study. bla.. bla.. bla.. Long story short, he graduated from BUET and doing his PhD. So. the key things are Shiblee's mother enormous push and a break of the curriculum change. Without one of those this story could have been entirely different.

Well that's the idea, Malcolm Gladwell tried to bring that up into the front. Einstein in not an Einstein if you disregard everything around him. The entire purpose of the book was pointing out the minor facts that shaped the successful people in later in their life. It is true: it is always easy to connect the dots backward but the backward connection of Bill Gates could really show the forward path of a kid in Washington today. I know backward connection of dots of the successful mind would not help us anyway, but what we can do is provide a guideline for future generation. Whenever a parent is confused, he or she may look at those dots to get some clue for their kids.

I don't know what was Malcolm Gladwell's intentions about the people itself, but I have no intention to vilify them. All my points were there are something due to the master minds' surroundings too and I wanted to acknowledge it with all due respect to them. Anyway lot of talking about Shiblee and very little about the book but I think I brought the idea of the book in front.

Color!

2012-02-04T11:22:00.000-06:00

I have been moved by idea of minimal component. If a component does not add anything to the whole, why bother to use such a component. Well why the same idea cannot be applicable to photography? I am sure it does. If color is not relevant to a photograph, why bother to compose in color? If subject is the only thing that matters in a photograph, why bother to compose in color? Don't get me wrong, some composition can be made of color, I am not talking about those composition.

Lost

Well, in this photograph all that matter is the girl and her emotions, why bother to use color! Is not it neater in black and white?

Going public again!

2012-02-04T08:43:00.002-06:00

I have been thinking of going public again. It has been almost a year I have gone private. My best intentions was to hide from everyone. Why? It's a great question but I am not very sure why. Anyway I am planning to go public again. I have not decided when and why. This time I'll blog some tech post as well. I am thinking of establishing it as my profile. I am not sure how good it would be. I'll try to be more frequent from now.

One more thing this blog is kind of mixed, so not all topics are interesting to all topics are certainly interesting to me. I thing this kind of messy organization suits me pretty well. After all this is the blog for myself not for the readers. Well if so what is the point of a blog if there is no reader? This is a very good question but I think one important application of blog could be storage! However the appreciate the readers. They are my alternative eyes of seeing things.

Quick and dirty tip!

2012-01-17T12:00:00.004-06:00

I guess everybody knows what I am talking about, it's a temporary solution of a permanent crisis! Do you see the problem? It cannot be happen, no temporary solution cannot solve a permanent problem! Why? A permanent problem has an important feature: it gonna be with you forever. Now you can solve this types of problem periodically. Some people solve it periodically and they keep doing it until the very end. I prefer the other option. Solve it permanently. Usually permanent solutions require bigger effort and greater patience. Still once it is solved, it is solved forever. I believe both approaches have their own pros and cons.

Personally I hate solving the same problem again and again. That's why I hate quick and dirty tip. Quick and dirty works but the problem is, it works for very short period of time. Sometime even worse, it causes long time damage! how? Paul Graham once said, "doing fake things is worse than doing nothing." I found it as a very useful tip in my life. Quick and dirty tip is like doing fake things and in long run it creates an illusion of real things. That's a very harmful situation! You don't have any real job and you are thinking you have; you spend all your time on fake jobs and no time to look for real job.

We often forget there is another very limited resource called time. If we spend most of our time on fake things we cannot have time for real things; even worse we cannot have time to look for real things. Personally every time I tried a shortcut I encounter a greater damage. So I believe those are not for me. I better wait for proper way of doing things.

Florida Road trip (Day III)

2012-01-13T14:03:00.000-06:00

Initial plan was to visit Orlando possibly universal studio but then we decided we will visit all famous beached of Atlantic coast of Florida. However we could not do much because of our unprofessional planning. We spend some time in Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, a tiny beach near Fort Pierce. That's it. I think everyone enjoyed the beach day. Some of us enjoyed swimming in Atlantic. I am not a swimming person, technically I didn't even touch the water.

I had a little fight with Lipa that morning so the day was kind of off for both of us. I took some pictures but compared to opportunity it was negligible. Daytona, Cocoa all famous beaches! I just come up with little over hundred pictures. Anyway, the day was not that bad we had plan to attend night life of Ft. Lauderdale. Unfortunately it was Christmas day and everything was closed so we kind of spend time on Hotel room and Ft. Lauderdale beach.

Daytona Beach, FL

Cocoa Beach, FL

Christmas Florida road trip (Day III)

Florida road trip (Day II)

2012-01-12T11:55:00.000-06:00

Our initial plan was to go to Savannah, GA first but after first day we realize it would be too exotic plan. So headed toward Titusville, FL directly. We stopped by Columbus, GA in the middle. Columbus, GA was okay but not too much exciting during winter.

Columbus, GA

Most important event was I loose control over myself and went crazy on Adnan. So that defines the fate of our entire road trip. Well in my opinion the it could be better but we had our own moments.

Christmas Florida road trip (Day II)

Florida road trip (Day I)

2012-01-12T11:41:00.000-06:00

Day I of our Christmas Florida road trip was good. We started from Norman, OK around 10 am in the morning. Our drivers drove like crazy and we reached Fort Smith, AR around 12 o'clock. Our next stop was Memphis, TN. By the time we reached Fort Smith, we realized if we drive like crazy our MPG gone crazy as well. So we decided to slow down a bit and we reached Memphis, TN around 5 pm. We spend some time in Memphis. While we were in Memphis we heard a good news and we decided to celebrate it; so we did. We started toward Birmingham, AL around 10 pm and reached around 2 am in the morning. That's our first day. We pretty much driving like crazy. But cover maximum distance in our first day.

There is not much things to do while you are behind the wheel. But we chatted with each other, know each other a little bit and get ready for the next days. Since it was the day before Christmas the Beale street (Memphis) was boring and no one was there except us. The day was good except few minor discrepancies.

Christmas Florida road trip (Day I)

Somebody to love

2012-01-09T14:25:00.003-06:00

When the truth is found to be lies

and all the joy within you dies

don't you want somebody to love

don't you need somebody to love

wouldn't you love somebody to love

you better find somebody to love

When the garden flowers baby are dead yes

and your mind is full of red

don't you want somebody to love

don't you need somebody to love

wouldn't you love somebody to love

you better find somebody to love

your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his

but in your head baby I'm afraid you don't know where it is

don't you want somebody to love

don't you need somebody to love

wouldn't you love somebody to love

you better find somebody to love

tears are running, ahhh, they're all, running down your breast

and your friends baby they treat you like a guest.

don't you want somebody to love

don't you need somebody to love

wouldn't you love somebody to love

you better find somebody to love

[Jefferson Airplane]

Chickasha, Festival of lights

2011-12-17T10:40:00.001-06:00

We went to Chickasha festival of lights yesterday. It was beautiful. They have pretty decent number of lights in the festival. This is not my first time, I have been there before back in 2008. This time it was different. This time my primary intention was was to take some photographs. They have a large collection of light and I wanted to take picture of them. I got some but most of them are crap. However I leaned some good lessons to take photographs of this kind of lighting show.

Some pictures are nice if lights are not in focus. Putting lights out of focus makes a outline of bokeh and that is pretty spectacular. Taking picture of lights in focus is pretty boring. Out of focus light is rather dramatic and visually aesthetic.

Photographs are two dimensional, of course they are. Most importantly when I was taking photographs of lights, the entire field became two dimensional lighting field. What I saw was no way comparable to what I got in my shot. Well, this is always true for photography but it became even more important for photography of lights. Background lights are as prominent as foreground lights or to be more specific there is nothing called background light.

Here is what I have taken from yesterday's photographic venture,

Planning!

2011-12-07T13:12:00.001-06:00

I just realized I am not good as planning. Planning for life! So far I am pretty much without any plan. When I look back I feel there is something missing and that missing part is probably proper planning. So far, I behave pretty much as an opportunistic! without any plan at all. USA a super fine tuned country and I kind of fall behind because of my lack of planning. I got to be well tuned in terms of planning.

I used to think I am good at it but all of sudden I realized I am not. I could have done better if I had a better plan. I have not idea how to improve it but I got to do it anyway! I need to find a place where I wanna be and then how to be it! Make some plan!

Florida, State of Sunshine!

2011-11-30T12:38:00.001-06:00

Lot of things going on, this time we are going to Florida!!! We are planning a road trip to Florida during this Christmas break. This time we are sixteen! wow! big number. Hasib is coming from Illinois, Jamee is coming from Texas, Shehab is coming from Maryland, Apu is coming from Kansas! We are a big gang now. I can certainly feel the heat. Florida the state of sunshine.

We are planning to drive here to Birmingham, AL, then Savannah, GA; we are going to touch all east coast beaches from from Savannah, GA to Miami, Fl. And then finally Key West, FL. That's our beach road trip for all east coast beaches. From Key West, FL to Pensacola, FL we will touch all Gulf of Mexico beaches. I have been told that these beaches are even prettier than East coast beaches, let see. From Pensacola, FL to New Orleans, LA and finally home, sweet home. We are touching many points and probably visiting all points of interest in Florida. I hope I would make some good pictures.

Sporadic obsessions!

2011-11-16T20:35:00.001-06:00

My general exam oral presentation is tomorrow. That's okay, somehow I got the maturity of not worrying about exams. I stopped by blogs I follows. I came across Salehin's blog. Salehin was always one of the fascinating guys I always admire. Me and Salehin started our career almost same time. I joined Kaz and he joined couple of days later. Just to give a little context, he was my batch mate in BUET as well.

He was a friend of my friend; I believe Dew introduced him to me. I didn't know much about him. I was curious when I first learned, he disappear from his home. Wow! it was my dream, and now I found a guy who can do it! That's fist I started paying attention to him; later I learned he is a mountaineer as well! This guy is unbelievable; he does what I always dream of! What amazed me most was he does all of these quite effortlessly! Somehow I never could do all these! They are still my dream. My romantic dreams, one day I'll leave everything, leave everyone behind me.

I was suffocated after six month or so after staring my first job! I started thinking I don't belong this place anymore. So I decided to choose another career for myself. Where I am going is a different story but I observed Salehin, he was amazing. He must have something that beyond my imagination. He was never tired of what his job. It's not that I didn't like what I was doing and he liked. I love software development more than he does, I just become frustrate of places I belong to after some time.

Little little things, we call life!

2011-11-08T10:39:00.001-06:00

How am I doing these days? It is kind of hard to define. I knew for what I was missing, what I want and how I want them; all of a sudden I got kind of confused: what really this meant to be? Is there really any purpose? Or is this a wrong question? Let say I have what I want, then what? I would want some more, and more and even more! But this is not how I imagined my life! Did I start early? Do I really have the maturity for real life, or does it really need a certain level of maturity?

I know what I am seeing is not right, but I don't know the right either! Is this 'right' stuff really exist? If not what our ancestors were taking about? Maybe it exists then? What happen to it now? I have so many questions to ask, so little time to seek for all of them. I don't know what I am doing here. I don't even know what my I meant to be!

Halloween Parade

2011-11-05T17:18:00.000-05:00

I went to Oklahoma City Halloween parade last week. It was pretty cool :) I love the concept of Halloween. In my country it would be too absurd for an adult to do something like Halloween. I don't know for some reason, adults in my country are pretty serious about everything. They never play silly. I even don't play silly. I mean it's fun to play something like this for some time. We don't have to be pretty serious about everything. I always heard it does not go with the people like your age, I think that's silly. We can play silly, we have life. Life is not all that serious. Maybe it is the time, I should think about my actions as well. I make life way more complicated than it meant to be. Why so serious?

Some pictures from Halloween parade

The best is yet to come

2011-11-03T11:42:00.002-05:00

Across the desert plains

Where nothing dares to grow

I taught you how to sing

You taught me everything I know

And though the night is young

And we don't know if we'll live to see the sun

The best is yet to come

I know, you know

That we've only just begun

Through the highs and lows

And how can I live without you

You're such a part of me

And you've always been the one

Keeping me forever young

And the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Don't look now, the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Take my hand, the best is yet to come

Thinking of the times

How we laughed and cried

I wouldn't change a thing

I couldn't even if I tried

Through the wind and rain

The spirit of our song remains the same

And the best is yet to come

I know, you know

That we've only just begun

Through the highs and lows

And how can I live without you

You're such a part of me

And you've always been the one

Keeping me forever young

And the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Don't look now, the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Take my hand, the best is yet to come

Oh can you feel it in the air

It's in your heart and everywhere

We got to keep that dream alive

We cross another road

And face another day

Soldiers never die

They only fade away

How can we grow old

When the soundtrack of our lives is rock and roll

And the best is yet to come

I know, you know

That we've only just begun

Through the highs and lows

And how can I live without you

You're such a part of me

And you've always been the one

Keeping me forever young

And the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Don't look now, the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Take my hand, the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Don't look now, the best is yet to come

Heya aeh ho

Take my hand, the best is yet to come

[Scorpions]

Happy birthday, Shiblee!

2011-10-27T14:22:00.000-05:00

How are you today?
I am okay, I am doing good

Seems like something is bothering you, otherwise you would not be here?
Well, I had a minor conflict of views with one uncle and he pointed out, I argue with small things and more often than not I disagree! It makes me thinking whether it is true, if true whether I should keep it or I should work around? I think I am almost convinced that he is right. I ask lot of question before taking it as my opinion and of course I pay meticulous attention on small things; now question is whether it is good or bad? right or wrong? Most cases I don't have faith on right or wrong, rather I see the problem opposite. I think whether this traits are appropriate for kind of work I am doing or kind of work I am planning to do? I think question is bothering me. I have one more problem, I cannot let something go easily. I tried real hard before accepting something and I tried equally hard before refuting something as well. hmmm...

Your problems sound innocent and even better, they sound like virtue?
Well, like I said, I don't believe in right or wrong; my craziest idea is everything is context dependent and if you drag them out of their context, there is not adjective you can attached to them. Even though the traits sound promising for a inquisitive individuals, you may find certain difficulty associated with them in real life.

Try to do some research! nobody in this world can tell you an unbiased story. End of the day, it is up to you which side you gonna choose.
I have even more crazy idea about right or wrong, I'll share those some other days.

Thanks to my blog, I think it helped really a lot.

Wichita Mountains again!

2011-10-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

Wichita mountain again within a month. This time for excursion. It was shinny and pictures were okay. It's hard to get great picture in the middle of a shinny day with no drama on the sky. So the pictures were pretty boring. I kind of like this place. It is a wide open place, I think a whole day hiking or three days camping would be interesting. Pictures I have got this time.

A beautiful shinny day

How are you, Shiblee?

2011-10-22T09:04:00.001-05:00

So how are you Shiblee? This Saturday 8:30 in the morning and I am blogging, it's not hard to imagine how am I? How am I? Do really have any life now? Hard tell, whether I have any life any more. My life is measured in terms of days, I don't have moments. Am I happy? Well, happiness is a state of living soul! Am I living being? Do I really have breath? This like sucks! Nothing changed then, huh! Still life sucks! Why the hell you bring all that trouble in your life? It was a mistake, I always recognize it as mistake, all I am doing now is trying to compensate. She is not all that bad, we have good time together, still the good time is more than bad.

How do see your marriage? Well certainly she is not what I wanted? Honestly speaking I didn't have any idea what I wanted at that time. I don't even know what I want now. I am not happier than before neither unhappier. I am still alone, even more lonely! I can't call my parents, hang around with friends and I don't have money! All I have is one wife who is not really my type. Life is not always what you want, I believe life is all about what you have!

I am the big fan of the idea of finding appropriate work for appropriate tools, instead of appropriate tools for appropriate work. Having all those things in my life what can I do?

I have an obligation to look after my family. So, I have family value, but I am too far from them! It does not make sense. Family value mean to be maximized by being together. What I am doing then, I have no idea! It is just a life without any direction!

What I want to do? Honestly, I never think about this question. This question seems too far away. But if I think carefully, I probably want to work for al small startup, earn handsome money, travel all over the world, that's it! Well think carefully, what makes you happy most? What is your goal? Goal? Goal? Where are you going? This is just typical life of a typical man? No, it is just a life of a aimless soul! Do research earn money? Well I don't like the whole idea of research culture! Software development? Kind of okay but not self rewarding? I need to think about this question further! This not the question can be answered easily. What I really wanna do?

This life was never meant to be living and it is not now.

Meeting with Dr. G!

2011-10-21T12:55:00.000-05:00

I had a meeting with Dr. G this morning. I have an interesting relationship with her now. Most of the time, I discuss my ideas and she always tries to make something out of it! Huh! this morning I presented some formal definitions that I came up with last week. I did it for fun, at that time I was thinking formally define something could be fun and force me think carefully about something. But this morning when I presented it to Dr. G, she immediately recognize it as opportunity of publication and asked me come up with formal reasoning and applications so that we can publish it as paper! Is life so complicated? She destroyed the fun part of it :( Is publication only goal of human life? I hate publication! so much talking so few real work! I guess we have a name for it "communication skill." :P

Wichita Mountain, OK

2011-10-11T09:29:00.000-05:00

We went to Wichita Mountain last weekend with Ron, Diana and other FIS students. It was indeed a nice outing. It was a nice place for taking pictures. The landscape is excellent. I think I should spend a whole day their, take some pictures and so. It could be another project of mine. It would be fun and adventurous.

Fighting!

2011-10-08T21:17:00.001-05:00

We are fighting almost twice a week. I think it's gonna go up. We are really two different people, happen to be together. I am not sure what's happening, I am not happy, I am compromising with myself in every single moment. Am I making my life even more difficult? Maybe I am making my life complicated; now that I am coming into same conclusion again and again, I think it was never meant to be easier that what I have now. I think relationship is not for me, not any kind. I am not good at all.

Do I think too much? Is this the right way to have a relation? Am I wrong for my entire life. Is this meant to be this way? I hate any kind of relation. I am never good at any kind of relation. If lipa should listen to me about money management just because I am a good money manager, shouldn't I listen to her just because she is a good relationship keeper? I hate people, should really be in a small town live by myself.

Civil war

2011-09-26T18:51:00.000-05:00

"What we've got here is failure to communicate.

Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men."

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before

Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said "Peace could last forever"
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land

And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war

Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before

Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

"We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer"

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war

I don't need one more war
Whats so civil 'bout war anyway

[Guns N' Roses]

Cell Phone Camera

2011-09-25T13:41:00.000-05:00

When cell phone camera was first introduced, I thought it is great combination. People always have their cell phone and perfect moment of photograph can happen any time. But I was kind of disappointed later when I found it was not as big deal as I thought. But I was never sure why is so. Is it lack of nice camera? or what? I was kind of impressed later on after iPhone 4 when Flickr declared their most popular camera is no longer a real camera rather a smart phone. It was the moment when my prediction became reality. But I had a kind of idea that people would take picture more often but that in my view did not happen yet. Maybe, not all people like to takes picture of the beautiful moments they see.

If anybody still not sure why camera phone so fun, here is a cause. Taking camera to a toilet is not my kind of thing but some toilets are really interesting. Have you ever found a toilet you wished to share with your friends? Yes, this is the time cell phone camera becomes handy :)

Blogger app

2011-09-23T12:46:00.001-05:00

I just realized there is a blogger app exists for iPhone! At last google decided to release an app for iPhone. The very first thing that refrain me using that app is lack of horizontal keyboard. Ooops! There is no horizontal keyboard at all! If you rotate your phone 90 degree nothing happens! I am using iPhone 3GS. I don't know whether because of my model or the app was build that way. But regardless of that it is shame to such goof from Google. I expected better than that.

I am not sure but the environment does not look like it made for long post. I think they made it for tiny posts.

Other than that everything look good to me. I liked the minimalist approach. I absolutely love the orange color, although I am not big fan of orange, it goes pretty well with blogger. I have not published picture or other media yet. Let's try a picture:

I am not sure how it works yet. It looks like I have to publish the post to have a look at it.

Game day

2011-09-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

Game day is a big part of Norman culture. Those of you still not sure why it is a big deal, I give a tentative idea. The total population of Norman is approximately 110,000 and the football stadium we have at OU has capacity of 82,00 and it is always full in all games. Equal number of people do tailgate party around OU. That doubles the total city population. There is a big impact of that and Norman needs a great deal of preparation for that. Game day is sort of a festival. One thing I learned in my life, a festival is nothing without the community. No matter how big the reason behind the festival, it is the community that brings a festival alive. So it's a big deal for Norman residents. I found it as an opportunity to try some street photography, so here are the photographs from last game day.

Sooner Tailgate

Norman street food! I have never seen this is in a regular day

Sooner fans

Gay Lord Stadium

Sooner spirit

Sooners!

One day they will cheer for Sooners

Little Sooners

Sooner legend

Pixie story! once again!!!

2011-09-23T07:58:00.000-05:00

She was in my dream today! How long it gonna take to let her go? I guess some faces are so pretty to go away. I never tried to forget her, I never tried to remember her either. She was just there. She was so real in my dream I could even feel her breath. Huh! why she is still there? Do I still have some feelings for her? Do I still feel her? I have a wife now! Do I love my wife? I never thought that. I get the idea that love is a fool's game. I don't believe in love anymore. All I believe in life. Then, why did I wake up at 7 AM in the morning and blogging about pixie then? Pixie was my destiny! At least I believed so :( and now I am here, so far from everything. Sometimes I feel like I lost my way, I am confused and I don't know what I am doing. I am doing so many things to make my life. I think somewhere something is missing, a big part of my life, what is it?

I was told a famous quote that marry the one who loves you, not whom you love; I did so and now I am here blogging at 7 AM in the morning. What a destiny! I guess this is not all that fun. It hurts, it sucks as well. My wife! Yes she is nice, she is an wonderful lady, she loves me a lot. I am the one who is faking love. I think I lost the sense of love long time back, or maybe I never had it at all. I am just a messed up kid in the town. I should never have a family. I should never have friends. I am a loner!

Thinking about friends, I used to think why I don't have so many friends from my school? I used to think, probably it is because I changed schools too much, this is not true. I have the realization that I can't keep friends. I have created an enormous gap between me and some of my best friends these days. Why am I doing this? I just don't know how to keep them. I am such a loser. Interestingly I was talking to mom last week and she was saying my dad doesn't have lot of friends either. I think this is my gene! Huh gene! I wish if it could brought something different for me! Life is never what I want for me.

Thinking about family, I pretty much messed up with the family as well. I married to a girl without taking concerns of any of my friends and family and interestingly I don't love her either. So my family is not all that happy. On the top of that I went crazy on my father last week and the situation become gloomy and ugly now. Mom stopped telling things.

Am I messing up everything pixie? Why is that? Am I overestimated me? But there is no such thing overestimation in my life. I love to push me even harder? Am I really doing Something worth doing! I feel tired! I think I should go back to sleep, or I should take a shower. I am not one of those who are always in love with their past, I love to explore my future; but sometimes I still miss some pretty faces. Some pretty faces are hunting me down. Sometimes I feel like something still left inside me for pixie, something very unusual, the love of my life. Or she fucked me up so badly, I still cannot forget her. She is the one, she is my pixie.

New York City

2011-08-29T12:25:00.000-05:00

At last I decided to write something about my last trip to New York City (NYC). New York City, many times it is called the financial capital of the world. New York City in my eyes is all about people and structures. Probably you would see people from all over the world in same place. The beauty of such diversity was so striking I was puzzled. People are beautiful. Later, I learn from wiki that almost more than 800 languages are spoken in New York City! 800 hundred languages! I did not even know that many languages exist!

Almost first thing anyone notices is business. Literally everyone is running, later in our (me & my friends) trip we realized, we are running as well (probably conditional reflex)! I feel like everyone is busy and they don't have a second to waste. The business of people was drastically striking. I have heard people of big cities are busy but I had no idea this is what they called business. In my eyes they are not busy they are racing with time. This is insanity.

The diversity! There is nothing to talk about diversity of NYC. Every second person is different. If you stand on a busy intersection, and look at the people waiting to cross the street, you would probably see hundred different people from hundred different places and no one has time to pay attention to the next person. Business could be a good ingredient for peaceful coexistence of such extremely diverse population. Now I know what diversity means.

NYC is a city of skyscrapers. It is a small city in terms of land but it is the largest one in terms of population. The only way to accommodate is grow upward, that's what they did. NYC grew upward. Gigantic structures are representing the glory of NYC. Many times it is really difficult to look at the top of the buildings, they are simply not clearly visible. I tried my best to capture the people and structures of NYC in my poor camera. I shared some them here.

New York City in my eyes

Street photography!

2011-08-16T10:44:00.004-05:00

I have been editing some street photographs from our last New York trip. This is first time I tries some street photography. It is fun, it is absolute fun. I mean taking pictures is okay but post processing was super interesting. There are people in the photographs, they have real emotions and my job is to pop them out. I had no idea it would so much fun. Sometimes I spend hours on one character; more interestingly I found myself talking with them! Some of the character has such as great impact you just cannot go away. I am super novice on street photography and I had no idea it is so much fun. Usually I got strong emotion in one out of thousand; but the thing is that picture is mind blowing. I just can look at that picture and spend entire day talking with them.

Few strong characters have so much to tell, creating artificial lighting to make them louder and stronger is absolute fun. You can literally talk to them. I think I am loving it. Now I need to learn how to take better photographs on the street, so that I don't have to throw away thousands. Here is one of my favorites,

She has all her thoughts in her mind while walking toward work. Well, it's a made up story but don't you think the story goes pretty well with the photographs. That's the beauty of street photography. You can tell whatever you want to tell. Your job is to make the characters strong enough to tell whatever you want them to tell.

Philadelphia, once again!

2011-08-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

Philadelphia again! This time it is a whole different story. We were planning for New York tour and all of a sudden we realized that flying to Philadelphia is comparatively cheaper than flying to New York; and it was just two hours road trip from Philadelphia to New York. So we extend our excursion by one day and made a plan to spend some time in Philadelphia. Last time I could not spend time to enjoy the urban beauty. Yes, Philadelphia is a nice city and we loved it. More specifically we loved it more than New York. If I have to choice to choose between New York and Philadelphia, the choice is obvious. I love Philadelphia. If I am asked to describe Philadelphia is one sentence, I would say "where history meets present." Philadelphia is actually one of those city where I always wanted to visit. It is the city of brotherly love, yes you can feel it in Philadelphia. You would not feel alienated there.

Philadelphia is full of history. History of American independence. History of great people who shared the vision of a great country. History is so much of Philadelphia that sometimes it is difficult to separate the history from present. They (people of Philadelphia) have the tendency to do things that can blend with history seamlessly. I was even more amazed by the design of the city. Somehow the city hall can be seen from many different places with entirely different kinds of view. Hope we could spend more time there. I took lots of pictures and most of them are crap. I had to delete most of them and the rest are not good either but at least they will testify our expedition.

The City of Brotherly Love

SSDBM, 2011

2011-07-24T14:26:00.004-05:00

I just came from a conference, SSDBM 2011. It was my first conference and it was interesting. I have couple of observations

Most people don't pay attention to what other people are saying.
Famous professors have extremely good presentation skill and they can really make anything interesting out of nothing.
Presentation skill can suppress technical skill.
Most people pay attention to the talks of famous professors or those are the only talks worth/ understandable paying attention. It is hard to say which one comes first, chicken? or egg?
Mostly conference is boring.
I didn't understand any word of it, even though it was related to my subject.
Discussion session before the talks was pretty interesting but mostly inconclusive.
Socializing is a big part of a conference.

It is a growing concern that the quality of research is going down although the quantity of published papers going up. However, I belief and most people agreed on, the quantity of quality research is almost same. Thus in my view a new problem is emerging; which is finding the good stuff out of myriad of trashes. Some people are concern whether the quantity of trashes would contaminate the overall quality of research? Since the resources (money, brain, etc) are limited and huge portion of it is becoming busy of producing trashes, it is very likely this situation might affect the overall quality. But in my view, the excessive trashes are due to excessive money in this area. Because of enormous amount of money, many con people are moving toward this direction and finding their place among the real scientists. When the money would go scarce, the fight will be tough and only good research would survive, may be! I am assuming the people who are distributing the money are well capable of judging the quality of research. Anyway, more people than not would agree there is a unhealthy situation going on here and it badly requires some kind remodeling.

Regarding the conference, I think they can play a very good role in the area of scientific research, at least in the field of computer science. This is because, computer science is fast growing area of research and to compete the speed of computer science an interesting trend has developed. In computer science nobody is bothered about publishing into a journal (I mean not as serious as other area). Most computer scientists prefer conferences because of fast reviewing process. So in computer science a conference is as important as journal in other area; however the reviewing processes of many conferences are not as good as journals. So here comes an inconsistency and to fill the gap conference should really change their way of operation! One change could be if the conference audience feels like any of the presented work should be modified, the conference should have flexibility to do that.

Anyway, is it really good idea to say so much just after attending one conference. Well I may not attend many conference but I definitely read a whole lot of paper and I can tell how crappy they are. I believe, even without attending any conference one can tell what I am saying. Anyway, enough about the conference. The good part of the story is, this year SSDBM held in Portland and it was a nice city. In fact it is different from any US cities I have ever been. I took a whole lot of pictures and here are some of them.

Portland is a really nice city and people are very friendly. I don't know why but lot homeless people roam around Portland. Most amazing part is roadside food shops! wow! feels like Dhaka! Me loved it! Its top class transportation makes it really one of the must visit places in US. I am not sure about winter weather but summer weather is not all that bad.

I'm gonna research !?

2011-07-24T13:07:00.002-05:00

Some PhD comics posts are hard not to share

City of Norman

2011-07-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

I have started a new project named "City of Norman." My idea is to create a visual representation for City of Norman as I see it. Norman is a pretty small town, not too far from Oklahoma City. Norman is my America, where I started a journey back in 2008. Many things have changed since then and many things will be. So I think it's time to create a visual representation of Norman. To me, a city is nothing without people so I tried to freeze moments and people in my work. Here is so far what I have gotten.

Fireworks!

2011-07-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

This year I took some pictures on 4th of July. This is the first time I am taking firework shots. The results are kind of okay, not so bad for first time. Here they are...

Stairway To Heaven

2011-06-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying the stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying the stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she's buying the stairway to heaven.

[Led Zeppelin]

Top of the food chain!

2011-06-28T11:10:00.001-05:00

I am enough lucky to be in the top of the food chain. I know it's not easy to be in anything other than top. How we became the top of the food chain? That's a whole different story, I am not going to tell the story again but in course of being the top we learn something! We got imagination! And we learn how to be the top, somehow we know how much it costs to be anywhere other than top and that's why our perpetual desire to be on the top. Unfortunately this world is never mean to accommodate so many tops but no problem as a human race we got imagination. We make our own pseudo-worlds and put ourselves on the top of them. Huh! I am on the top!!! Somehow in course of journey from Ape to here we forgot there are other instincts not just imagination. Somehow we forgot we are social being; we survived against deadly enemies because we fought together. Necessity brought us together; is it gone!? Do we really need to stand together anymore? I don't know the answer but being lonely still hurts. Somehow we don't see our insatiable desire for the top is making us alone, it is making us weak. One day we will be wiped out entirely from this beautiful world, I hope future races would not condemn our greed as "the reason."

I received an email from topu bhai today; he is going start up a new company! Well, I admire entrepreneurship. It's risky, it's lonely, it is full of shit! But I don't like the idea of starting one more outsourcing company unless you really know why you left your old company! What was missing in there? What's new you are going to do? Is it just because you wanna be top of the organization, is it little more money!? Doing the same thing again and again in a different place is no better than basic animal instinct. Every animal makes their own houses at certain age, they do exactly same thing what their ancestor taught them to do; does it make all of them entrepreneur? I bet on 'no'; entrepreneurship deserves innovation. Somehow we got rid of the innovation part and we hook up with the idea of 'being top'. To me this is a basic animal instinct we are doing no better than a tiny bird who is making his own nest the way he has been taught.

Due to enormous pressure of our population our land got cluttered back in eighties/nineties and every farmer cultivates a tiny piece of land. A huge space was occupied by isles to put them apart. So back then people came up with the idea of combine cultivation. We saw the trap of tearing the land apart and now doing the exactly same shit here in our organization! Wow! great! Congratulations new entrepreneurs!

My lonely blog!

2011-06-27T11:27:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about writing something this morning and I came to my blog. I am amazed how hard it is to write something for me now. Things were same when I first started my blog and then at some point it was as easy as talking. I am feeling that block again. Interesting. I haven't really anything for long time and I almost lost my spirit of writing :( Well that's not good. I love to share my word with other people. What's the reason I can't write? My blog is private now; no one gonna read it anyway, is that the reason of my block?

My lonely blog is even lonelier now. I made it private! why? I was thinking may be I am thinking so much before writing anything and it would be easier for to write if I know nobody is gonna read it. But apparently that didn't work. Another thing is this blog is my friend for long time and it was my only companion of my lonely time. I think I have so many people now I forgot my best buddy! Life did the justice and brought back me to my old friend. I am still a loner but only difference is now I am surrounded by many people. I have to learn to be loner while in the middle of the crowd.

I love my lonely blog, it always embraces me, no matter when I come to it. I feel like I really did injustice to my blog. Every time I got something I set it aside in my oblivion but it never turned me down. I am the sinner! I turned it down, my lonely blog, my sweet lonely blog.

Let It Be

2011-06-13T13:02:00.000-05:00

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

[The Beatles]

Dr. Gruenwald!

2011-06-01T13:34:00.000-05:00

These days so many things happening centering her. Yes, she is still my advisor and she is becoming notorious as a trouble creator. Interesting all of her students end up having another advisor before their defense and most students don't last more than a semester. Wow! she is amazing. I believe no one in our department likes her. She already became notorious as a trouble creator. No wonder students working for her suffer are always unsecured. All of her students have complain about her, I wonder why? Even, she made trouble with the students who took independent study with her. Oooops!!! this is absurd. I wonder why? what could be so wrong with a person that nobody likes her? Well, it is difficult to explain!

Interestingly, she has been nice with me so far. Great! but why? I know for sure she would change her color. What I don't know is when? I am fine with that. I can work with people hated by everyone. That's fun, that's tough and that's insane. Serendipity or my character whatever it is, I have dealt with many people like this in my life and interestingly (or unfortunately) these kind of people like me! Even more interesting is that, other people don't like the fact that your are working with someone who is hated by everyone; they immediately think I am the only reason they can't brought her down! Funny, why would I be hateful to someone who didn't do anything bad to me!? Even more, she is so far very nice to me!!! I know this situation would not prevail forever but if I leave her would it not be the same? I want to be nice to here as long as she is nice to me.

I know she is a bitch, that's fine with me. Even me, I am not nice to everyone. No one is nice to everyone. I believe she is just ahead of the curve. I know she can be bad to me anytime; wait a bit, anyone can do that too. Yes I understand the probability is high for here case. So the obvious question is does the outcome worth taking the risk? I haven't think this before! It is a good question to ask? I need to find this answer. Most importantly I don't expect anything from her. I know she would not give me any reference for interns, I believe not even for jobs. Let me see how things shape up!

Well, what are the complains about her? Probably she is little bit demanding and never thinks about the student. All she care about is herself. Students are pretty much on their own. If you don't know how to use your independence then it could be a real trouble for some. If you can't imagine that now, I can tell, it can take you to a wrong direction very easily. So every time there is a conflict of interest between her and her student, they end up in a mess. Overall, I don't recommend her as an advisor unless you really don't have other way.

Beavers Bend, Broken Bow, OK

2011-05-19T10:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, finally we went to Beavers bend, Broken Bow, OK for camping last Friday. I have been planning for camping ever since I came here and I really couldn't manage to be there until last Friday. It was my first time camping of this sort and it was fun. We almost took everything from home and we cooked there. We took abundant food for two days and we had to return most of them. Fist time camping is always fun. We had a plan for hiking and we hiked three or four trails but those were short ones. We were exhausted and we gave up hiking. It was not very successful photographic venture, I was little tired and sick and I couldn't concentrate on photography; I came back with few snapshots and I am very unsatisfied. I am kind of unsatisfied with the overall camping, because we spend most of our time cooking and dining. Here are the pictures I got from my first camping.

Camping, Beavers bend, Broken Bow, OK

Rejections!

2011-05-02T12:45:00.000-05:00

Interestingly, in last two years I got rejections for numerous places. I am wondering why? I got rejections from six different universities, I got rejections from two jobs interview and three conferences. The total number of rejections I believe is greater than, the total number of rejections I had in my entire life before. That's not very usual? is it? May be, I should sit and think about exactly what's wrong about my applications. I can imagine the entire package I was offering was not very great and so they had tell me 'no'; but my question what exactly appear so bad that I had to heard 'no' from every places!

Well, it is true that these pushes my self esteem a little bit but these insist me to think further about the package. What exactly wrong my resume? Undergrad CGPA? Work experience? List of papers? Not sure! Something went wrong, should I wait for a year and see what happen then? Certainly this is not my time! I think I should put aside everything and concentrate on my PhD work. Maybe I should not harm my PhD work, otherwise I would be in trouble after my PhD. Anyway, life is different when you are continuously receiving rejections.

Probably, if I apply further it would be insanity. In my dictionary doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is insanity. I believe I need some time to settle everything. Wish me good luck!

Memphis, TN

2011-04-29T19:29:00.000-05:00

A short tour to Memphis, TN. It's a nice fun city. We started last Friday and came back Sunday. It was a scary drive. There was tremendously bad weather on west of Oklahoma and east of Arkansas. We had to drive on tornado warning, anyway it was fun!

Kahlil Gibran once again

2011-04-29T11:01:00.000-05:00

If reward is he goal of religion, if patriotism serves self-interest, and if education is persued for advancement, then I would prefer to be a non-believer, a non-patriot, and a humbly ignorant man.
By adornment one acknowledges his ugliness.
Ambition is a sort of work.
The fear of Hell is hell itself, and the longing for paradise is paradise itself.
If you choose between two evils, let your choice fall on the obvious rather than the hidden, even though the first appears greater than the second.
Strange that virtue in me brings me nothing but harm, while my evil has never been to my disadvantage. Nevertheless, I continue fanatic in my virtue.
If you wish to see the valley. climb to the mountain top; if you desire to see the mountain top, rise into the cloud; but if you seek to understand the cloud, close your eyes and think.
Affection is the youth of the heart, and though is the heart's maturity; but oratory is its senility.
Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

Little Rock, AR

2011-04-27T11:02:00.001-05:00

A stop by at Little Rock, AR. Arkansas is called natural state in its car tags and I believe you don't have to ask why if you go to Arkansas in this season of the year. It's all green! We kind of liked it in our short trip to Arkansas; it's green, it's hilly. I wish I could have spend more time.

Medieval fair, 2011

2011-04-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

At last I took picture in medieval fair. I have been planning of taking picture in medieval fair for three years. It is an interesting place to be and it is quite fun as well. Finally, this year I took some pictures in medieval fair and they are quite interesting. If anyone in the pictures has complain in public photo posting please let me know, I would delete the picture right away.

Turner falls, Devis

2011-03-18T19:59:00.002-05:00

It was a beautiful sunny day in Norman of our spring break. I woke up early in the morning to take my friend to the hospital. It was little bit gloomy early in the morning but the sun started shining after ten or eleven. I did not feel like working so decided not to go the school and planning a short trip. Until three I tried my best to convince not to go anywhere because lipa's exam in knocking at the door. Finally I could not and call Adnan and Zafar! and we end up going Turner falls.

It is my second time in Turner falls but this time I was planning for taking lot of pictures! Well, I took a little bit and it was quite nice place, but I guess it is even better for camping not just a short trip. So we end up planning a camping in Turner falls sometimes in coming weeks.

A beautiful sunny day of our spring break!

I was going through National Geographic website today and realized probably I can add a little bit of story with each of my photo post! Why? Well I guess to make it more interesting. I don't think my pictures tell any story, I am not that good in photography yet! At least I am trying to be there. So until then I guess I have to add my story with my photo posts; that might make the entire thing a little more interesting.

Higher dimension!

2011-03-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

I was trying to extend my outlier detection technique for higher dimensions. I kept the basic same and try to distinguish outliers in higher dimension. My original technique was based on nearest neighbor and I figure out my approach is not working for higher dimension very well :( I went deep into the program and trying to figure out 'why?' Eventually I realized the average density within certain radius is not very different than the average density of an outlier! In brief the distance is not a discriminative feature of an outlier!

I look into the dataset and it looks okay, then I look into the literature and found something equally interesting and horrifying :( nearest neighbor for higher dimension is not very meaningful; for high dimensional data the ratio of the distance to the nearest neighbor to the distance to the furthest neighbor is 1 and therefore the nearest neighbor based discrimination is not fruitful at all! The situation may improve if we change the distance metric from euclidean to manhattan but not full proof! The good thing about this result is all distance based outlier detection is use less for higher dimension but the bad things is mine is also use less! I have to look for something very different than nearest neighbor.

It is not very intuitive to visualize higher dimensional space and therefore is not easy to imagine the notion of outliers in higher dimension! I guess I need to figure out about what's work on higher dimension. That would not be a easy journey at all.

iOS 4.3

2011-03-14T15:54:00.000-05:00

I updated my phone into iOS 4.3! Cool! interestingly there is nothing new for old devices! you can only find the new features (if any!!!) in new devices! Cool! I know Steve Jobs is a fanatic supporter of the idea hardware software decoupling does not work well; wow! even the new updates for same OS do not work for old devices! Perfect! I wish I had the money to try reverse, I believe that would not work either. Apple does it all time! I wonder why apple does it every time, is it because apple is so stupid that it does not know how to make it decoupled! or what? I find it very irritating! Apple should make dump devices for dump people instead of smart devices. People want more diversity or customization from smart devices.

New life

2011-03-13T01:03:00.003-06:00

What's new in this new life? Definitely first thing is I have to constantly think about a second person. It is quite a difficult task for people like me who are mostly self centered. Most of the time I missed time to spend for myself. I always knew no matter whom I marry she is not gonna understand me; and it is true. Very few people understand me very well and certainly my is not one of them.

The One I Love

2011-03-11T17:14:00.000-06:00

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love
Fire. Fire.
This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)
This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
Another prop has occupied my time
This one goes out to the one I love
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)
Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)

[R.E.M]

Fast Algorithms for Mining Association Rules - Review

2011-03-11T10:56:00.001-06:00

Authors - Rakesh Agrawal, Ramakrishnan Srikant
Summary - The paper presents two association rules mining algorithm for large datasets. Association rule mining is an interesting area of data mining which discovers the relations among the items in transactions. The new algorithms execute at least three times faster than existing algorithms. The first algorithm is called Apriori which incrementally build the large itemsets (an itemset is a set of items, the support of an itemset is calculated by the count the set appear in the database and a large itemset has support greater than minimum support) until no new bigger large itemset can be added, but this algorithm requires many passes over the database to discover all large itemsets. To tackle this problem this paper also presents another algorithm called AprioriTid, which does not require many passes over the database. AprioriTid stores the list of transactions that requires passing again to compute bigger large itemsets in the subsequent steps. However, the list of transactions that requires passing again may grow larger than the original size of the database which deteriorates the performance instead of improving it. This problem is severe for greater number of large itemsets but drastically disappear for smaller number of large itemset. Hence this paper proposes the use of a hybrid algorithm composed of Apriori and AprioriTid called AprioriHybrid. AprioriHybrid uses Apriori at the beginning when the number of large itemsets is high and switched to AprioriTid when the number of large itemsets became small. An empirical study confirms their claim at the end of the paper.
Further thoughts - (1) In order to obtain meaningful rules how does a user choose minimum support and minimum confidence? (2) Attribute data are fundamentally different from transactional data, how does the association rule mining work for attribute data?

Lyrics

2011-03-11T10:46:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I was planning start writing a short review of every paper I would read. Well I am hoping I would have a repository of review of papers at the end of the day. Keeping that in mind I came to my blog this morning I found I have posted almost seventy distinct lyrics! Wow, I know all those seventy songs were my favorite and I have a repository of my favorite songs! Is not it cool; I was pretty excited when I realized I have seventy lyrics. Every lyrics remind me a time, a time of struggle, a time of love or may be something else. This is what my blog is all about; it is keeping the past to share with the future. I know I would love my blog even more in coming days, I can feel I am becoming more lonely. :(

Anyway, I am gonna start writing short review about the papers I would read from now on; probably I should start putting all the reviews I have already and the new reviews would be added as I read new papers. But my question is how I am gonna put the reviews? If it requires too much effort I am gonna stop that after while; so it has to be incredibly easy while effective. lets start it if it doesn't work then I'll stop it like I did for many things in this blog!

iPad

2011-03-09T14:58:00.001-06:00

I was not very convinced when apple released iPad last year. I was not quite sure why would I use it? They released the second version this year and I am still not quite convinced about why would I use it? It looks like some people are gonna use apple product no matter what it is! Apple has a tremendously loyal customer base and it makes product for them!

Interesting enough, many people even try to copy iPad and now the market is full of this kind of tablet, funny huh! I would not be wondered if I buy one tomorrow and start thinking this is cool gadget! There is no doubt it is a cool gadget, but my point is what's for?

I did a little research today, I am amazed that Steve jobs is not the one who invented tablet pc, it is again Microsoft, Microsoft introduced tablet pc back in 2000, at that time it was not popular. It was more like other Microsoft product, a set of buttons and crappy look and so; the true difference from today's iPad is it was not neat! People did not like it at that time, the sad part about Microsoft they have 90% market share for operating system but zero fan where as apple got near 5% market share and even more fan! They are just fanatic, they don't care what apple is making, they know got to have one! I know apple products are beautiful for they are not the best! I personally find no reason to an apple product! Well I bought an iPhone but I would love to trade it for an android phone. The reason I bought an iPhone is it was the cheapest deal at that time, and I am still not in love with it. Certainly I am in love with smart phone but as long as other smart phone provide the same facility I am happy.

I am thinking it would be even more fun to use a android phone. I could make my own application. So there is no seamless interface for app building for iPhone apps in windows! Pity!

BlogSpace

2011-03-07T19:13:00.001-06:00

Looks like I got an app for iPhone blogging. It passed my initial test, it has portrait and landscape mode and it can do tagging! Two most important feature I expect from blogger application.

I think it support picture and video for blogspot. That's cool, I think this is the best free blogging app for blogspot. I hope it is usable, in my experience most iPhone apps are not usable; they crash every so often. One more thing don't go back to see local draft while bloging, because it does not save every word you type.

I would say this is the best free blogging app, I don't know about the paid apps because I didn't use any of them. The only irritating part is ads; but that's okay, they have to earn money anyway.

The initial screen freezes very often and you have to tap more than once to something and the behavior is kind of random. At least it can save after putting in sleep.

Meeting today

2011-03-07T17:23:00.001-06:00

I have a meeting with Dr. Gruenwald today, huh one more meeting, lots of promises, no results and so and so. I really don't like to meet with her. I am wondering what we would discuss? I tried to run the experiments and it is not completed yet. We are planning to submit a journal version paper. This paper would include our new experiments for multi dimensional data. I have been doing the same things for two semester now! That's pretty bad. I believe I can do better than what I am doing right now but somehow I am becoming demotivated day-by-day.

Okay, finally the meeting is over. I did not promise anything today but she asked me to do something. She is too good to me, I didn't present much today and still she did not tell me anything. I am wondering why? Either she starts trusting me or she has something in her mind. I personally prefer to go with the first one. Yes, she trusts me and that made me stay here after my MS. I know that was a wrong decision and I don't know how to fix it! I don't want a bitter end, I want a smooth transition but I now know I am scared of uncertainty and I am not going to stand it forever.

iPhone!

2011-03-07T13:14:00.002-06:00

Fianlly I got the idea, blogspot doesn't have any app for iPhone but it does have for android. Never mind I ma learning working with web interface. It should b fine until I am planning to embeb picture.

Last few days I am trying to write an application for myself, apprently there is no easy way to write iPhone apps for Linux or windows and I don't have Mac machine :( This is something I really hate about Mac. Diversity is beauty and certainly Apple does not understand that.

New day

2011-03-05T13:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, here is a new day. Today I wake up early, way not that early compared to week days, but yes it is early in the morning for Saturday. Lipa is preparing for GRE so we got to wake up early, then had our breakfast and now she is studying. And me, I am blogging. I am trying to be more connected with my blog than ever before. Why I am doing this? Partially this is because I feel like I am kind of detached from and my blog and most importantly, I need someone to share my life. Probably, it's bit difficult share your life with your wife, it's rather easier to share life with blog. Moreover, I got the mobile blogging thing which even more fun.

I believe blogspot should two kind of post, one is like blog and the second category should be very much like twitter; in that case I don't have to go to twitter and I can access it from here. But Google has Google Buzz but they connected Google Buzz with wrong thing, Gmail. Status update with email!!! Is it a kind of joke, I didn't like it, apparently not many people liked either. It was indeed a wrong step but they could do even better if they connected with blogspot. Because blogspot users like to share there life with the world not Gmail users, so in my view they targeted wrong kind of people.

I just finish the Apple's keynote for iPad 2. In my believe this time the big thing they did is made some really cool software to really make iPad popular. I already can see, people are using iPad; most likely they use it for fun nothing so professional and I believe the new apps add even more fun. I kind of live their Garage Band app. It seems really cool! I was kind of skeptical when the first iPad was lunched and still I am, but now I am kind of sure it is a fun box; then my question is how long it going to survive just as a fun gadget, or they have real plan to make it real professional. Let's see. I have already enough for today, good day.

Mobile blogging

2011-03-05T02:14:00.000-06:00

I am kind of enjoying the mobile blogging thing. I can blog from anywhere. Right now I am in one of friends place and we are watching movie. I am just taking advantage of mobile blogging. We are watching Dhobi Ghat, a Hindi movie. I am becoming addicted to blogging. I bloged a lot before but this is different, I kind of addicted to short posts. Just quick ideas, mobile bloging is so much fun.

This movie Dhobi Ghat, seems pretty boring. May be I should stop blogging and concentrate on the movie, may be in this way I can grow some interest on the movie. I have tried, I have no idea what the hell this guy (our hero) is doing, the only thing I understand is he is trying to be tough and cool. This movie is too boring. One stupid woman popes up and she is really irritating me. I think we got one more hero here.

Parisa went to prepare tea for us, we really enjoy this Friday night gathering. I really like the director of this movie. I also like the idea of watching movie and blogging simultaneously. Actually mobile blogging is pretty cool, I think I would write a blog about my whole day. I really can put all my stupid ideas right here. I am pretty excited about it. I think this movie has some thing different. The video idea is very cool! I just realize the good thing about this movie is it does not have any music. Finally he movie is over, I think the director tried something different but it was not world class. Overall my rating is three out of five.

Now we started another movie, named eagle eye. Let's see what's going on in it. Looks like war movie not sure yet. We started this movie because we thought this is a Friday night movie, now it is getting serious. Please don't tell me it is a serious movie. Looks like a perfect Friday, all I need to do is shut may brain and stop thinking. We are having fun. Lot of things happening visually striking and logically incoherent, a perfect Friday movie. This movie is all fiction, no science. Happily ever after, us president rocks! It was good blogging and movie session, good bye.

Blogging

2011-03-04T19:24:00.000-06:00

I spend entire day on my blog. Ha! I wish I could have anything better than that. Every day I feel like I hate my boss more than previous day. This job is becoming my pain in the ass. I am not gonna sacrifice my life just to be here, especially when being here does not mean anything to me. I need quit this job. I think end of this semester would be good time for quiting this job. Anyway, I am confident I am not gonna do it anymore.

I ma not gonna live forever, so there is no point of wasting time on things those I really don't like. If life is all about compromise then I don't want that fucking life. I wanna live as long as I love to live, I feel like living. Right now I don't feel like living and there is no point compromising my everything on nothing. It looks like I don't have any other alternative other than quiting this job, huh! I am sorry Dr. Gruenwald, I am really sorry, I wish I could make it.

New look

2011-03-04T13:04:00.000-06:00

Apparently I spend the entire morning creating the new look for my blog. I was using the old look for last four years, so thought probably this is the time to get a new look for my blog. Most importantly, since this blog is no longer public, I have plenty of options for experiment. I just realize that the blogger now allow to adding more pages, so I believe I could add more pages and use it as my home page! Well, this blog is no longer public! Anyway, no problem, I would play with this blog quite a bit. One more thing, I have decided to use blogger in draft as my default settings, so now I can use all the cool features way ahead of release.

I kind of like the new design, certainly the new design allows me more customization but the only thing I didn't like is bottom notice. I wish if I could change the notice. I don't have problem referring them rather they deserve it but I didn't like the idea of having no control at all! This is nasty, I never expected anything like this from Google. Overall the new look is fun.

BlogWriter!

2011-03-03T20:56:00.002-06:00

At last I found something for iPhone that can write on my blog! But this fucking stupid software does not capture the orientation and therefore I cannot have the horizontal keyboard layout! I think the developers are just stupid! Don't they think that horizontal keyboard is way more convenient for application like blogging. Huh! Looks like I need to write one, but I don't have Mac! I need find a way for iPhone application development for windows, hmm...

Finding wrong!

2011-03-03T19:52:00.000-06:00

Now-a-days most of time passes thinking what was wrong! What was so terribly wrong that I got rejected from all universities I applied? May be I over estimated myself, sure that's one possibility. Then what is the right assessment for me? Am I worth trying again? Do I have any good inside me? How do I justify my position in front of my best friends! Now I know why I don't have any friend, because I don't know how to keep them close, how to be together! I never learnt that art. Am I that bad? How bad I am?

I messed anything and everything possible, now I am going to mess with the last thing I have. I am going to mess with my job. I am thinking quiting the job just to go beyond my comfortable zone. I know when I take a wrong decision it always follows by more, hopefully this is one among those more but I'll do it! I'll do just for the sake of doing it. I know my advisor would make my life hell but what's point of living if you never been challenged. This time I want the road I passed to be closed so that I cannot go back!

iPhone posting

2011-03-02T16:54:00.000-06:00

I am wondering why can't I post using my iPhone. This is iPhone post and there is no good interface for using blogspot from iPhone. I think iPhone deserve one. At least it always with me and there for add more convenience for me if I can blog using my iPhone. What exactly I expect from iPhone app? A simple title box and text area probably work as a good start point, oh ofcourse a text box for the category of the post. a convenient way of embedding link and picture would be great! What else!

I think this would be enough as a good starting point, and like all other customer I would eventually realize what else I need for iPhone bloging. This post is written using the web interface from my iPhone. Write now I can see a small part of the text in my screen and it little bit annoying! We have so many useless apps but I don't have one I need. I am wondering does android have one for blogspot. Enough for now, from now on I'll try to be more frequent on my blog. Let's see how the entire thing coming out.

Someday you will miss today

2011-03-02T11:58:00.000-06:00

http://stuffnoonetoldme.blogspot.com/2011/02/65.html

I wanna be free

2011-03-02T11:33:00.001-06:00

All my life; I've followed signs; On many a road
Tried to find; What was right; And do what I'm told
But sometimes; You cross the line; And never can go back home

I've been here; And I've been there; Always on the go
Looking for; Something more; To call my own
Up to now; I have found; That life as a whole was cold
'Cause I've never belonged

[I wanna be free; And live without warning;

I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side
I wanna be free; 'Cause a new day is dawning
I wanna be me; I wanna show the world I'm alive]

Who's to say; I need change; And I am not what I'm not
Look at me; And what you see; Has been through alot
Now it's time; For me to find; What love's really all about
And all that I've lived without

[I wanna be free; And live without warning
I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side.
I wanna be free; 'Cause a new day is dawning
I wanna be me; I wanna show the world I'm alive.]

[I wanna be free; And live without warning
I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side.]

[I wanna be free; And live without warning
I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side.
I wanna be free; 'Cause a new day is dawning
I wanna be me; I wanna show the world I'm alive.]

[I wanna be free; And live without warning
I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side.
I wanna be free; 'Cause a new day is dawning
I wanna be me; I wanna show the world I'm alive.]

[I wanna be free; And live without warning
I wanna finally see; What it's like on the other side.
I wanna be free; Cause a new day is dawning
I wanna be me; I wanna show the world I'm alive.]

[Marc Anthony][Youtube]

Going private?

2011-03-02T11:06:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog I had one thing in my mind, me! I was the only writer and probably I was the only reader as well. At that time I wrote for me and I knew for sure I can write anything because no one is going to read it. Over time I grew some popularity and I was dragged from my motivation. I started realizing I am not the only reader and I started writing for others! In my view this no longer fun this is business! Although, I didn't monetize this blog but that because I knew I would not earn much from this blog. But I deceive my self saying this is for fun not for money, I know these are all crap, I am a hypocrite.

Anyway, I started writing for my audience and becoming less frequent in my blog. Now before writing anything I at least once think about my audience. Probably this is wrong, this is all wrong, why should I worry about others when I started this thing for myself! Even worse is I filter out many idea just because the readers may not like it! This is not what I want! This is all wrong!

I just realized writing for myself way more fun than writing for others. I am not one of those who believe there is no point of writing if no one reads it. I believe it is even more fun to write for thyself. From now on I would try to write for myself only and forget about the audience. Probably I should change the permission from public to private so that I know for sure no one is reading it and I can write for myself. For the time being I would turn off the comments, so that no one can leave a comment and I can ignore the audience; if it doesn't work I would make it a private blog.

Minimalist approach

2011-02-05T16:00:00.001-06:00

In my life, I have decided many times that I am going to follow minimalist approach. Well I belief at some point every man thinks about that to cater his insatiable greed. Okay, here is an interesting story to share. I had a go phone when I first came in United States. I took it so that I my family could reach me, then eventually I took an AT&T line with a fancy touch screen phone. It was fancy, huh! But unfortunately I dropped that phone into water and I borrow one from my friend and finally I bought one from AT&T again. Then my contract matured and I was tempted to get a new phone! If I take a new phone why not iPhone! Well I took a iPhone then. Finally I realized it is supersensitive and I should have a screen protector :) so I got one, finally I am thinking I may drop it and so I need a protective cover so I ordered one :D Now tell me what is it? I don't know what is it but it is not minimalist approach. It is not need either, probably this is what we can call greed. My insatiable greed!!! I forgot where I read it but I read somewhere a quote saying this world can satisfy men's need but nothing can satisfy men's greed. Where is my minimalist approach? Where is my anti-materialistic life? I could not, I couldn't save myself from this materialistic; it took me; it is taking me every moment.

An Interview with God

2011-01-26T11:41:00.000-06:00

I dreamed I had an interview with God.

God asked.

"So, you would like to interview me?"

I said.

"If you have the time,"

God smiled.

"My time is eternity; what questions do you have in mind to ask me?"

"What surprises you most about humankind?..."

God answered

"That they get bored with childhood - they rush to grow up and then long to be children again."

"That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health."

"That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future."

"That they live as if they will never die, and die as if they had never lived."

God's hands took mine and we were silent for a while and then I asked...

"As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?"

God replied with a smile,

"To learn that they cannot make anyone love them. What they can do is to let themselves be loved."

"To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives."

"To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others."

"To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least."

"To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons one loves, and that it may

take many years to heal them."

"To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness."

"To learn that there are persons who love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings."

"To learn that money can buy everything but ... happiness."

"To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it very differently."

"To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they must also forgive themselves."

"And to learn that I am here -- always."

[Author Unknown]

These Days

2011-01-19T16:17:00.000-06:00

Well I've been out walkin'
I don't do that much talkin' these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
And it's so hard to risk another these days
These days
Now if I seem to be afraid ... to live the life I have made in song
Well it's just that I've been losin' ... so long

Well I'll keep on movin' ... movin' on
Things are bound to be improvin' these days
One of these days
These days I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten ... my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

[Jackson Browne]

Wedding Reception (Part II)

2011-01-08T20:00:00.002-06:00

Wedding reception (Part I)

2011-01-07T20:00:00.002-06:00

Halud ceremony

2011-01-05T21:00:00.002-06:00

Will Rogeres to Bahrain

2010-12-19T14:21:00.000-06:00

It is really hard to realize what is united states by being in the country. I am flying back home today and lets start with my experience. I flied to Oklahoma Will Rogers to Chicago O'Hare International airport. Chicago O'Hare is a huge airport and my flight was late due to extreme weather in Europe. Well my next flight was Chicago to Frankfurt and as soon as I reached Chicago I realized it gonna be delayed for 2 hours. Okay fine, I decide to wander inside the airport. Everything looks normal, nothing especial. I realized the specialty when I reached Frankfurt. In fact Chicago has higher number of flight than the total number of people in Frankfurt and you can still notice the chaos! I took me an hour to find out the gate number of my flight, well may be I dumb ass, it took an hour for everyone. And then the security check point opened just two hours before the flight, it was not a problem, that particular security check point was originally for two or three flight so it was not that much rush. But most fun starts from then. Our flight was suppose to depart at 11:20am and we got into the place an hour before that and finally that plane depart at 1:30pm! and we had no idea what was going on. Well it is possible that any flight can be delayed due to severe weather in Europe but most funny part was the crew members was announcing that the place is going to fly within five minutes in every ten minutes! What a pitty!!! I know security of the passengers are most important and if can fly they can tell the passengers we can't, I didn't get the point continuous ridiculous promises!

When I was in the Frankfurt airport I saw girl sitting just outside the boarding area, and this is same for each boarding area. I went to the girl and ask why are you sitting here, she explained her responsibility is to make sure everyone sitting in that particular boarding are has the right boarding pass!!! I never imagined that some one needs to make sure that the passengers in a particular boarding area have right boarding passes. Isn't it the responsibility of the passengers to find the right place to sit so that they can have jitter free boarding?

Finally I got into Bahrain from where I am writing all these with there free WiFi!!! It looks like this airport is busy but not sure this is a very tiny airport even smaller than Will Rogers and plenty of people are roaming around. Here I notice one interesting thing, finding the passenger is the responsibility of the crew members, for each flight they are announcing with at least four languages for at least 5 to 10 passengers! I am wondering where are they??? In most cases they were found in the boarding area of that particular flight! Here is Bahrain people have severe problem with the flight or they just hate the airport authority and crew members. Either they don't understand what they are suppose to do or they just don't care!!! Most hilarious part is for every departing flight one crew member go to every boarding area and ask everyone if he or she is waiting for that particular flight! Apparently airports are not for everyone. I'll upload the pictures later.

Rhythm of My Heart

2010-12-12T21:52:00.000-06:00

Across the street the river runs
Down in the gutter life is slipping away
Let me still exist in another place
Running under cover of a helicopter blade

The flames are getting higher in effigy
Burning down the bridges of my memory
Love may still be alive somewhere someway
where they're downing only deer
a hundred steel towns away

Oh rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words "I love you" rolling off my tongue

No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I'll be sailing

Photographs and kerosene light up my darkness
light it up, light it up
I can still feel the touch of your thin blue jeans
Running down the alley I've got my eyes all over you baby
Oh baby

Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words "I love you" rolling off my tongue
No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky I'll be sailing
I'll be sailing

Oh I've got lightning in my veins
shifting like the handle of a slot machine
Love may still exist in another place
I'm just yanking back the handle
no expression on my face

Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words "I love you" rolling off my tongue
Never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I'll be sailing

Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words "I love you" rolling off my tongue
No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I'll be sailing

The rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words "I love you" rolling off my tongue
Never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I'll be sailing

[Rod Stewart][Youtube]

About me!

2010-12-10T00:27:00.001-06:00

I have tried many times to write about me! This is blog is full of me, me and my complains. But I could not come up with something that represents me. I am sure this is not a very healthy situation. Not knowing thyself is not a very encouraging characteristics to have. Let me try one more time, what I can tell about me?

1. I am bad tempered.
2. I am complex (It is relative so I am not sure where should my name appear)
3. I often lie without any good reason.
4. I get tired of anything very quickly.
5. I don't have any hobby.
6. ...

It took quite a long to find all those and now I got stuck :( I am not all about these shitty things :( I do have some good things but I am not sure what are they. And now I am stuck, and ...

Going back

2010-12-10T00:01:00.000-06:00

I am going back home this 18th, wow!!! After almost two and half years, should I be excited? Yes I guess. I am not too much excited, not very sure why? I have a kind of life here and I grow some kind of relation with this new life, may be I am just afraid of the change :( Not good, I am getting older and older.

I almost forgot the map of Dhaka city :( Sometime I feel like human beings are more rigid than trees, they can really grow their roots deep inside the place they live. I have some kind of relation with Norman, may be it is not my home town but it is the town where I lived for last two years and half. I am a emotional packrat, I keep emotions forever. Well maybe not true! Actually I don't, I almost forgot some faces, those were very close to me. I really don't understand myself :(

According to Rassel, I am a big hypocrite, probably I am, I am a big hypocrite. I don't have many things left on me. I cheat with myself, I cheat with everyone every moment but still I don't know how to cheat with life. If one thing is persistent in my life that is probably my feelings about my life. I always hate my life, I always feels very very pissed off.

Beyond the Sunset

2010-12-02T23:06:00.000-06:00

Should you go first and I remain to walk the road alone
I'll live in mem'ry's garden dear with happy days we've known
In spring I'll wait for roses red when fades the lilacs blue
And in early fall when brown leaves call I'll catch a glimpse of you
Should you go first and I remain for battles to be fought
Each thing you've touched along the way will be a hallowed spot
I'll hear your voice I'll see your smile though blindly I may grope
The mem'ry of your helping hand will buoy me on with hope
Beyond the sunset oh blissful morning when with our Saviour heaven is begun
Earth's toiling ended oh glorious dawning beyond the sunset when day is done

Should you go first and I remain to finish with the scroll
No less than shadows shall ever creep in to make this life seem droll
We've known so much of happiness we've had our cup of joy
And memory is one gift of God that death cannot destroy
I want to know each step you take that I may walk the same
For someday down that lonely road you'll hear me call your name
Should you go first and I remain one thing I'll have you do
Walk slowly down that long long path for soon I'll follow you
In that fair homeland we'll know no parting beyond the sunset for evermore

[Hank Williams]

Wichita Mountains, OK

2010-11-26T15:10:00.003-06:00

Bricktown, OKC

2010-11-07T22:05:00.001-06:00

Hypocrite

2010-11-01T18:57:00.000-05:00

Dictionary.com explains the word hypocrite this way. Am I a hypocrite do I pretend something that I don't have? Yes maybe! It is hard to be truthful to everyone and everywhere. Well! may be it is easy but for me it is not. I would have ask a different question, why do I need to be truthful to everyone? Why can't pretend a virtue that I don't have? Human is basically a animal, if I hit someone he or she will hit me back, does it mean he or she does not have the virtue of not hitting a human being and therefore he or she should hit everyone!

Probably I got it all wrong; hitting back has nothing to do with hypocrisy. Well what is hypocrisy then? Hypocrisy is the name of pretending something that one doesn't possess. So where is the limit?

PANAM Halloween Party, OU

2010-10-30T09:46:00.001-05:00

All credit goes to Adnan

Live simple

2010-10-28T16:16:00.004-05:00

Life is lot easier when you have little less to think about!

Meaningless stuff

2010-10-27T01:29:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting dream last night! I was trying to check my email by writing the gmail.com in a piece of paper and pressing the text by my pen :( Isn't it funny! When I woke up this morning I was thinking, well it may not be funny after ten years. All we need a IP enable piece of paper. I hope some technology is going to replace paper very soon and then what we need is a perfect OCR and IP on it. Does it sound like fiction? I guess no. If you look at Amazon Kindle, it looks very similar to book. We need something little bit thinner and pen that can write on it. I hope paper is going to be obsolete in foreseeable future and then we have to attach IP on it! My dream would come to a reality!

Tulsa, OK

2010-10-17T11:37:00.002-05:00

Arcadia, OK

2010-10-17T11:35:00.002-05:00

Shortcuts!

2010-10-15T18:59:00.000-05:00

For some reason shortcut doesn't work for me. Most of the times if I try any shortcut I end up with opposite; no inconsistency this time as well. I tried one and end up messing even worse. Probably shortcuts are not for me but poor me; they are too lucrative to ignore :( The worst part of the story is this is not the first time I am realizing the fact but I forget the lesson very quickly.

Last few days was total crap; everything was against me! Every news was bad news! Every step was wrong step! Every action received even worse reaction! This is a hard time for me.

Imagine

2010-10-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

[John Lennon]

Pauls Valley, OK

2010-10-02T13:40:00.002-05:00

Trouble with physics

2010-10-02T13:07:00.002-05:00

I have just finished an interesting book titled, "Trouble with physics" subtitled "The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next." Interesting book indeed. The first part of the book comprises a brief history of particle physics. I like that part most. I would say the author, Lee Smolin described the history of particle physics indeed in an interesting way.

In the second part is also quite interesting as well, in this part the author presented the rise of string theory and unresolved questions! He also criticizes String theory pretty harshly. He pointed out many questions those String theory fails to answer and many conjectures where String might fail. It is difficult for me to comment on this part because what he said is his arguments; I believe the String theorist must have their own explanation for them. But what amazes me most is, the transition from Part I to part II. Part I was written as if the everything is truth and Part II is written on the perspective of Science. I am not a big fan of popular science because sometimes authors write science book as if they are writing Gospel. The best part of this book the author did not present Science as a Gospel.

Part III presents the rival theories of String theory. Again, these all are theories and far from truth. I believe is Part IV is the part where the author made his main point. He pointed the unfair polarization of resources toward String theory. He also pointed some major flaw in doing science. Let me focus on one point, science is something that tempts scientists to think but recent practice is somehow fail to do so. I kind of agree with him; well I don't know very well about Physics but certainly I know about Computer Science. People are not interesting in thinking, they are more interested in doing, doing science. I am not asking to believe me, lets do this way;

Take some paper from recent conferences and journals and read the abstracts. You will certainly see one common thing. Everyone is claiming "In this paper we have solved Mr X's problem (which is the most important problem in this Universe) using the method Y (which is the best even known method to human civilization) in the context of Z (which is the most futuristic emerging research arena)." And most common trend is the authors have no relation with the problem, it is somebody else's problem; the solution is essentially proposed by someone else and finally the context exists only in imagination. There is not sign of think (therefore no science) in the whole process and to me this is very unhealthy.

I like to add one more interesting point. As a human being we are very fond of good and bad; we certainly know there exist two clusters one is called good and another is called bad. Even though we don't have any idea about what are those representing but we certainly know they are very important. Typically, we love good and we hate bad, since we don't know what are those things, we probably love the names. It is difficult to judge the think of a human being, but we have to attach a name with every person; scientists are not different. Hence we change the way of doing science, now the scientists are evaluated based on what they do not what kind of idea they possess. That made a big difference. People from all over the world are now interested about doing; that leads to another problem. Now everyone is doing something and start publishing. This situation gives the rise of publication industry. Now the problem became different, since publication industry became profitable many organization start moving toward it all of a sudden and the scientists start 'doing' in enormous pace. Now everyone becomes equal again with respect to publication and we are having hard time again to cluster. So now we starting clustering publication industries and so one and this process continues. I don't know what it is bringing to us but certainly it is not taking us to the next step at least not in my view.

Anyway, go back to the book, "Trouble with Physics." (I have a very bad tendency of roaming around) What I felt about the book is, the main point of the book is not hard to perceive but it is difficult to comment on the specific example "String theory." String theory may find some success in future but it should not consume more resources than it deserves. At the end of the day it is 'just another theory'.

I would like to add some interesting quotes from the book,

"working on String theory had proved to be a good intellectual training, and some former string theorists are now flourishing in other areas, such as solid-state physics, biology, neuroscience, computers, and banking."
"String theory itself in need of unification"
"The community has decided string theory is right and there is nothing you can do about it. You can't fight sociology"
"After a certain point a successful scientist could easily spend all of his or her time on the politics of who gets hired where"

I have few comments on the very specific topic of the book,

The things he called package deal (Part II) for String theory appeared same to me the things he called beautiful consequences (Part I)! May be the consequences are not beautiful enough to convince the writer but they are consequences no matter beautiful or ugly.
The idea of curling up the dimensions and make them imperceptible appear again and again in the history of unification! Is this the same trap where human being are falling again and again or it is the reality? Apparently adding few more dimensions is the easiest mistake we can make.

The relationship

2010-09-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like the relationship I have right now is wrong! It is a very wrong relationship. There is nothing wrong with any of us, I mean both of us are okay but we are not for each other. We are trying hard to make it happen but for some reason I have a feeling that we both know it would not work. We are just very different. Do we know each other? Well little bit and I am not a big fan of knowing very well. I believe knowing well is a very good catalyst for breaking up and it at the same time ends the journey of exploration, so I don't wanna know my partner from the very beginning.

I feel like we are trying to glue up two different piece of materials together which are very wrong for each other. But then again we have gone so far that it's not easy to be apart now. I have no plan to break it up but I don't wanna break it. Even though I know it's not right, still I wanna have it. At least we'll end up with a thermostat. In fact no relationship is perfect for me. Let me see how far we can go from here.

Network connection

2010-09-29T14:03:00.001-05:00

I have a super interesting story to share: In my new lab I have one network connection for my Desktop. Since I always bring my laptop, I asked for one more connection. The new lab has every facilities for that and even we have two extra connection port in the room; all cabling and everything already done and it turn out that all the department has to do is to activate those connections! cool!

Now guess what they did! they ask 300$ for the activation! I have never heard of so much amount of money just to activate one connection and unfortunately I never thought it can even be charged. Then I thought probably those extra connections are just-for-show they really don't have any cabling inside them but guess what, they do have cabling and everything but where does that amount of money coming from?

Here is the explanation, in our previous building, if a new connection had to be established, they had to buy the cables and connect the new port to the switch and so and so... and all those things cost 300 bucks! So in the new building even though everything is already done they just charge that much amount of money to activate the connection! Wow! what a lovely elegant idea! Since I don't have money what I did was buy a 10$ switch which comes with two cables. I connect the switch to the network port and connect my machines to my new switch. Obviously that solves my problem but I am thinking what will I do if one fine morning they asked me for million dollar because that the cost of a 3GHz computer when the department was established!

'STUFF' NO-ONE TOLD ME

2010-09-28T17:48:00.000-05:00

I went to my feed reader and found google has posted a new "blog of note". I used to follow them regularly but now I don't. Today they posted an excellent blog as a blog of note. I am not a big fan of cartoon but this blog is so good. I have copied one from that blog, I hope you would enjoy it as much as I did.

It's true, no one keeps count of my failure; more precisely no one even cares.

String theory!

2010-09-24T20:07:00.000-05:00

I had a very little idea about modern physics; I new the name of modern theories; well may be what they 'state' as well. But hardly any idea about String theory. I tried several times to understand what it is but in most cases I was demotivated by complicated description of String theory. I had an idea that it is not easy to explain String theory in plain english, or even if it is described it is impossible for me to visualize what it is. In a nutshell, somehow I got the idea that String theory is not for me and don't try this way.

Then one complain is pretty common among non-physicist, what have the physicist done during last fifty years? Some of them were even more aggressive to claim that age of physics has finished. Well, even though I have no idea what they are doing, I had a great respect for the physicist and I used to argue them by saying what they are doing is far reaching for the engineers; probably that is the reason why we are not seeing any breakthrough from experimental perspective! By knowing little bit about String theory I have to say that I am partially true unfortunately not entirely. It seems like String theory is based on something that is not doable now not even in foreseeable future; then what the theory is all about?

The theory is all about an eleven/ten dimensional thing and that is the cause of everything is this earth, it has very well formed set of constants those make everything different from one another; and we human being can see only three (four) dimensions and rest are somehow vanished (either they curl up or they are just beyond our universe) and we cannot perform any experiment to neither falsify nor justify the theory. Wow! what a beautifully stated elegant idea of modern physics! After reading carefully, I believe I come up with another theory that might have more implications, "God made the universe and he made two different things called energy and particle, he live in a holy place where no human being can ever enter or imagine." Doesn't it sound right?

It is elegant because, it will solve not only the problems of physics but also the social problems as well. Why it doesn't sound good? Because we cannot prove the existence of God and neither falsify his existence, the same thing is true for String theory (at least right now). This is interesting, when I was a kid I memorize the definition of science, where there was significance for experiment and analysis but without that part I am now confused what I should call it?

আবল-তাবল

2010-09-21T17:42:00.001-05:00

অনেকদিন পর লিখতে বসছি, কি জানি লিখব ভাবছিলাম ভুলে গেছি। আজকাল মাথা ঠিকমত কাজ করে না। মাথারই বা দোষ দেই কি করে, কমতো আর ধকল যায় না ওর উপর দিয়ে। মাথাটারে মাঝেমধ্যে খুলে রাখতে পারলে খারাপ হইত না, আমি আর মাথা দুইজনেই ক্ষানিকটা শান্তি পাইতাম। যন্ত্রনা! মানুষ কেন লেগো দিয়ে তৈরীনা :( যাইহোক কিছুত আর করা যাবে না, বরং কিছুক্ষন আবোল তাবোল কথা লিখি।

আজকাল মনে হচ্ছে আবল তাবল কথা লিখার জন্যেও চিন্তা করা লাগতেছে, হমমম... অনেকদিন রাজা উজির মারা হয় না, আগে কত ভীষন ভীষন চিন্তা করতাম, রাজা উজির মারতাম, আজকাল আর কিছু করা হয় না। আমি কি মারা গেলাম নাকি! তপু ভাই বলত আমার যখন খোজার ইচ্ছা শেষ হয়ে যাবে, তখনই নাকি আমি মারা যাব! আমি মনে হয় আগের চেয়ে ভীত হয়ে গেছি, এখন আমি অনেক কিছু বিশ্বাস করা শুরু করছি :( খোজ করতে ভয় লাগে। আমি মনে হয় মারা যাচ্ছি, এরপর হয়ত একটা ভ্যদামাছ হয়ে বেচে থাকব, না! আমি তা চাই না!

ভাল একটা খবর আছে! আমি বাড়ি যাবার টিকেট কাটছি! ডিসেম্বরে বাড়ি যাব, গিয়ে কি করব জানি না তবে যাব। অনেকদিন পর বাড়ি যাব! আমার অবশ্য বিশেষ আগ্রহ ছিল না, কিন্তু আব্বুর শরীর ভাল না; আমাকে বাড়ি যেতেই হবে। যাই, গিয়েই দেখি নতুন কি আছে।

ভাল লাগে না, ঝড় থেমে যাচ্ছে! ঝড় থেমে যাচ্ছে! ভবঘুরে ঝড়টা থেমে যাচ্ছে একটু একটু করে, প্রতি নিয়ত মনে করিয়ে দিচ্ছে, আমার সময় শেষ হয়ে আসছে। আমি আমার মত করে বাচতে চাই, বাচতে চাই!

Art of writing

2010-09-16T15:30:00.003-05:00

So, now I am learning 'Art of writing', it is not about misleading the people, it is about presenting something positively. It is writing something several times but still each version looks like entirely new one. They called it art of writing :) Interestingly this art is everywhere in academia. This art is so emerging that NSF has to offer a workshop for scientific ethics and they are trying to enforce it by making a prerequisite for research assistants.

The motivation for the conference organizers is money and the motivations for the researchers is more funding. Organizing more and more conferences and publishing more and more papers is like win-win situation. Researchers are happy because they can publish more and get more funding and organizers are happy because they can earn more money. It's an interesting industry; by the grace of this industry we have got few bunch of politicians and lobbyist claiming themselves as scholars!

Here are some interesting posts from Daniel Lemire's blog, "How reliable is science?", "Manifesto for Half-Arsed Academic Research", "How to get everyone talking about your research!"... Anyway, this what we called research and we are proudly proud of our research :D

Microsoft Academic Search

2010-09-08T21:20:00.008-05:00

I came to know about Microsoft Academic Search couple days ago. It gives a very fancy visual view of researchers, conferences, journal etc. Probably they are competing with Google Scholar. Google scholar doesn't have any fancy view. In my opinion what a student/professor needs is the results not the views. Very few of their targeted people care about view, how fancy the results look like and so, what they care about is results. Isn't it wrong effort for wrong group of people.

Even if I accept the view, the search is essentially slow. Probably the reason is their fancy view; the speed bothers me a lot. What I care about is first correct results not slow fancy view. On the top of that the results are not updated. I tried with different people and most of the time, it missed the very recent papers and articles.

And most interesting part is some results are even wrong!!! I have no clue how they do it but some results are wrong. See in the figure, according to Microsoft Academic Search the first author is a guy from University of Cairo!!! wow!!! Particularly I know the first author of this paper and he has never been in Cairo in his entire life :( Another typical Microsoft product. huh! another bad product!

Norman revisited: Game day

2010-09-05T01:53:00.002-05:00

Junks: Motion blur

2010-08-22T11:59:00.003-05:00

Norman revisited: Duck pond

2010-08-15T16:06:00.002-05:00

What's new?

2010-08-06T11:49:00.003-05:00

Not very many things,

I have completed my long cherished Masters and now thinking of PhD. Probably, starting my PhD from this Fall. Not very sure whether I am ready for such a long commitment(!) I am truly afraid of my flickering mind and now even dare of small commitments. At this point I am not very sure how good it would be to consider such a long commitment. Anyway I moving forward who cares what next.

My parents are really insisting me on going back home but I don't feel like. I never enjoyed my life here but the homesickness I had is missing right now. Right now, I am in no man's land. I don't feel like going back home rather I think would love to go somewhere else. Moving to a small town and living a tranquil live is my ever lasting dream. So I am not considering going back home at this point.

I am deliberately looking for the reclusion I had before and hardly manage some. I need some time for myself. Somehow I become very popular which I really don't want to be. I need to find a way.

Just got back from a trip to Vegas. It was okay but really missed Hasib and Rassel. Planning a trip to Colorado sometime this month. I think that's it. I am really trying hard to make my life little less boring.