the only thing worse than having a bad idea is having no ideas

anonymous

one more bit is enough

i have this perpetual confusion with restrooms in restaurants/hotels in figuring if they are single-access or can allow parallel-access. theres always some doubt involved in whether the protocol should be to knock or try to open the door. if only they gave one more bit of information -- on whether the design is single/multiple access, the confusion would go away.

(this seems like an obvious thing to patent :-) )

words/phrases i hate in papers ..

1. we present something "novel"
2. we are the "first" to introduce/solve the problem
3. we develop "sophisticated techniques/algorithm" to solve the problem
4. we make the following "contributions" (long list of trivialities..)

• ..
• ..
• ..

i guess what is irritating is that all of these are for the reader to assess and judge; not for the writer to claim/assume. sadly, with the realities of the the reviewing process and often the short-attention span of reviewers, the only work that sees that light of day are those that explicitly spoonfeed the reviewer with such keywords.

(im certain i have been/will be guilty of these at some point)

suboptimal routing

September 12, 2008 10:22 AM Sortation Center Departure GROVE CITY, OH
September 11, 2008 7:50 PM Sortation Center Arrival GROVE CITY, OH
September 11, 2008 1:12 AM Sortation Center Departure ORLANDO, FL
September 9, 2008 9:13 AM Sortation Center Arrival LEETSDALE, PA
September 6, 2008 3:25 AM Sortation Center Departure NEW BERLIN, WI
September 5, 2008 5:38 AM Sortation Center Arrival NEW BERLIN, WI
September 4, 2008 5:08 AM Sortation Center Departure DALLAS, TX
September 3, 2008 3:34 PM Sortation Center Arrival DALLAS, TX
September 3, 2008 2:40 PM Pickup CARROLLTON, TX

the bloody place is 32mins from the intended destination. i could have had this shipment three days back!

on the brighter side ..

my bad cantaloupe karma has finally decided to leave

qotd

why is it that people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?

-- bond, "casino royale"

on father's/mother's day

"this invented holiday was never part of our emotional calendar."

-- from "the diving bell and the butterfly"

real world hack .. free shipping

imagine a store X that has both a physical and online presence. X offers only free shipping if your purchase exceeds Y$, however it allows you to return the purchased items in-store without charge.

simple hack (discovered by accident): purchase items worth more than Y$ (including whatever you really want). return the undesired items in-store once they arrive. u effectively got the desired item shipped for free :-) (modulo the cost of having to go and return in store)

driving violations

do people driving fancier cars get bigger fines for similar violations compared to people who drive more ordinary/rundown cars?

irony

pain forcing a cheery disposition

brain and time

how does the brain keep time and identify periodicities -- especially with respect to music/beats etc?

also whats the finest resolution of time that the brain can keep track of -- second/millisecond?

update: well there seems to be a whole line of research on this topic http://ticktockbraintalk.blogspot.com/

random: swiss army laptop backpacks

i have been recently amazed by the sudden apperance of swiss army laptop backpacks (well there is the possibility of a confirmation bias here .. but lets set that aside for now). too many people seem to have the same brand of backpack.

i figured there must have been some kind of promotion or sale forcing such a monoculture but couldnt find anything of note. a little bit of inquiry revealed that the bags were on sale at sams club (www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate. do?dest=5&item=361436&pCatg=5791 ) and were a good deal.

for the record, i think the backpack looks good.

brilliant ..

"Fewer than one in forty Biharis possesses a television. For entertainment, many rely on Lalu .."

-- In spite of the gods, Edward Luce

google checkout - bug?

google checkout consistently gives out 10$ off for anyone signing up for a new google checkout account -- the cost of creating a new account is trivial. and as far as i can see there is no conscious effort to correlate credit card numbers or address information to prevent the obvious cheat of creating bogus identities to get 10$ off each time?

am i missing something

(only flip side is by signing up multiple accounts, u run the potential risk of compromising the private information more often if the account gets cracked)

no right to comment on ..

i have no right to comment on people wearing non-matching socks

(my left shoe and right shoe today are different -- in my defense the two brands of shoes look very similar, but thats no excuse!)

happyness =

splitting chewing gum wrapper cleanly into three layers -- paper,plastic,metalfoil :-).

accidental discovery of the day

typing "www.url.com." or "www.url.com./" in your browser address bar gives same result as "www.url.com"

steam shadows

as i watched water boil (no it doesnt affect it :-) ), i noticed that the steam/vapor induced a shadow on the wall but i couldnt actually see the vapors.
a. are there other such examples where things can be seen in shadows but through eyes?
b. is this because the human eye doesnt have sufficient resolution -- e.g. would a hi-fi camera pick it up?

any answers?

derandomization

brain seems to be less inclined to random thoughts, hence the reduction in blogging frequency. dont know if senile degeneration has already set in :-(

HDTV

same garbage, only sharper

--werner vogels, amazon