Even with a car, I am utterly bekar (bekar = useless in hindi)

Though I haven't really had the time to blog recently due to a spate of unfortunate events in the lab and a tonne of grad school applications, I was compelled by the need to chronicle the sheer magnitude of my stupidity (as reflected by my recent actions) here. As you know, I am quite into self-ridicule and playing the Indian bloody fool.

The events unfolded this Monday as I was driving to work. In the spirit of eco-friendliness (despite, or perhaps due to, the fact that I use a gas guzzling yellow taxi as my means of transport), I switched off my engine while waiting for a train to pass on the tracks in front of me. As soon as the coast was clear I turned my key expecting to hear the engine to burst to life (a sound that increases testosterone levels in men, resulting in it being classified as an empirically tested sexy sound). Alas and alack, what followed was an absence of any sound. For a moment, the ambience was silent as a grave. This proved to be the oft cited lull before the storm since what followed was a crude and strident cacophony of car horns.

I was blocking a lane with a dozen anxious commuters behind me!

Desperately, I turned the key again and again. The lights on my dashboard flashed lazily at me and the engine seemed to have joined Virgil in the world of the dead. I was just beginning to fear being torn to shreds or stoned to death by irate New York drivers when a cop came on the scene and cordoned the area (after almost being run over by an old lady who was making earnest efforts to find a way around my car by driving into the way of oncoming traffic in the other direction). After invoking the son of God and having a cathartic yell at the wanton old lady, the cop called a tow truck and settled down in his car which he had parked behind me.

Mind you, all this time I was feverishly begging the engine to start. When it was clear that it had turned a deaf ear to me, I turned to praying fervently to the large number of Hindu deities to come and rescue me from this Gehenna and making promises of atonement. I still had about 329 million gods to turn to when the tow truck came. The driver who could have been, I swear, Barack Obama's hip-hop loving twin got off and asked me if the car was in park.

I have never laid claim to genius. I am not a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon and never will be. In fact, I would give quite a lot for someone to upgrade the processor in my brain a little bit. It's still stuck in the Windows 95 era. Now, Windows 95 may not be Windows 7, a webpage does ultimately load in the former. Something like that happened within the unchartered and somewhat frightening viscera of my brain at that instant.

"THE GEAR! I HADN'T PUT IT IN PARK!!! !$£@$@%£%@$!!"

I told him I'd go and check. I got into the car and found that the car was, indeed, still in drive. Somehow, neither the cop, nor I had noticed this in the fifteen febrile minutes that had just passed. While the guy's back was turn, I turned the key with a prayer (to the 100001th Hindu God) on my lips. The engined roared its approval of the new state of affairs. The cop and Barack whipped around at the sound. All I could do at this point was to put on my best thespian performance of the week.

People usually ask: "What would Jesus do?" I asked: "What would Jesus's disciples do?" Astonishment, thy name was Pranay Sinha for a few minutes that Tuesday morning. Peter's reaction to the multiplication of the fish, by comparison, would roughly be as follows: "Meh."

Not being of a scientific or detective bent, Barack-O and the cop did not pursue a line of enquiry as to the how-ness of the miracle. The laconic cop shooed me off. I am fairly sure I'd have beaten a hybrid of Hermes and the flash to the driver's seat. I drove away, my heart beating like a thief's, and my brain in the throes of depression at the realization of its many shortcomings.

James Bond must be ashamed of me.

How Indira Gandhi's assassination was broken to the world

Mr. Anand Sahay is my uncle.

How many??

All of us have seen those asinine games at malls in which humungous transparent containers are full of M&Ms or table tennis balls and chaps are supposed to guess the number of the M&Ms or balls in the containers. Obviously, the scientific approach to this would be to measure the volume of one M&m/ball, estimate the volume of the container and divide the latter by the former. However, people tend to wing it and guess over several powers of 10 (e.g. 50 to 50X10^5).

Anyway, I was walking past these massive, 4 Litre, conical flasks full of Luria Broth that has bacteria growing in them (the optical density is pretty obscene as you can see in the picture) and the perfect guessing game for Biologists occurred to me; it's called "How many Coli". I think it's pretty self explanatory. Should be a big hit at biological research institutes.

Hint: It's not 50.

Sinister bike permit

I am not sure you can read it, but my bike permit advises me as follows:

"Permittee releases MTA LIRR and MTA MNR from any liability for injury, death or damages arising in connection with use of this permit. Have fun."

The "have fun" struck me as very incongruous. I think they forgot to add "at your own risk".

"Skynet" is all I have to say to this!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24drones.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=drones&st=cse

For those who weren't mesmerised by Terminator movies when they were adolescents, skynet is a computer defence system that becomes self aware, considers humans a threat, and nukes them. This paves the way for the rise of the machines. Now the USAF wants to have squadrons of pilotless aircraft of all sizes ranging from tactical bomber to nanospy planes. Makes me uneasy...

Someone's birthday is coming up...

I've never really understood what people mean when they say that. You know, we're getting close to 7 billion in terms of global population. The number of days in a year are 365. So with some crude maths, you expect to have 20 million people who have a birthday every single day (that's wonderful if you're in the Happy birthday business). Therefore, it's kind of a pointless thing to say that someone will have a birthday soon (assuming soon means two-three days) because a subset of humanity equal to france in terms of population will have a birthday in that time period. You may as well say that the Taj is a pretty nifty tomb.

Someone's birthday is coming up...

I've never really understood what people mean when they say that. You know, we're getting close to 7 billion in terms of global population. The number of days in a year are 365. So with some crude maths, you expect to have 20 million people who have a birthday every single day (that's wonderful if you're in the Happy birthday business). Therefore, it's kind of a pointless thing to say that someone will have a birthday soon (assuming soon means two-three days) because a subset of humanity equal to france in terms of population will have a birthday in that time period. You may as well say that the Taj is a pretty nifty tomb.

To those who like to use foul language...

...Randall Munroe has something to say to you:





But Intellectual badassery is immune from the jumping hyphen. If you make the hyphen jump, you shall be hung, drawn, and quartered with an industrial laser.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
had to include a conversation with a friend about abovementioned lasers

qubit85: what kind of laser are we talking about here?
me: I don't know
the kinds that can cut you into half
the kinds sean connery faced in goldfinger
or the kind pierce brosnan faced in die another day
as you can see, my knowledge of lasers is rooted in James Bond movies

Intellectual badass-hood

So on the way to NCUR23, I met an interesting and dauntingly intelligent bloke from Johns Hopkins. He introduced the concept of intellectual badass-hood to me. This is an astonishingly appealing idea for nerds of my ilk. No longer shall we suffer under derogatory titles reminiscent of Homo unpleasantus characteristics(refer to previous post for obscure reference: http://comprehensiblecomplexity.blogspot.com/2008/10/well-theoretically.html).

So, if you are sufficiently smart, reasonably ridiculous, engagingly eccentric, adequately attractive, and compellingly competent in your field you shall henceforth be allowed to lay claim to a glorious title: Intellectual badass.

For once in my life, I am making an exception in my escewal of words with the gratuitous suffix of 'ass' because 'intellectual badass' just sounds BADASS.

P.S: There is a species barrier between Homo unpleasantus and intellectual badassery.

The (ubiquitous) shit

Now, I am a biology chap, but I do get irked by cliches floating around me. One came to my attention a couple of days back.

I was working quietly on my cell bio homework in the computer lab when this chum of mine exclaimed: "I am the shit!!!" Indeed, he seemed quite pleased with the idea. Now, to a literal mind like mine, there can be nothing very salubrious about being a segment (or even a pile) of excrement. I fell into a bit of a quandary.

Now, prepositions were probably devised keeping human experience in mind. For instance, if you say that you went to Schenectady (place chosen for its absurd name) in 2009, you could imagine that time is considered the 4th dimension so in some absurd way you could actually be IN 2009. This doesn't always work since human experience and perception isn't always universal. For instance, we Indians fill IN forms whereas I constantly find myself filling OUT forms in the US. Similarly, the whole world stands in line (probably assuming that the row of people is the line) whereas New Yorkers insist on standing ON line (the assumption probably being that they're standing on a stretch of land that's linear). Anyway, for the most part prepositions are based off human experience (the rest are absolutely arbitrary). Surely, I thought, there must be some such logic behind slangs and colloquialisms. I charged on cavalierly and naively to think that these would be consistent as well.

Now, if you claim to be "The Shit", one would naturally suppose that you desire to express that you possess the qualities of the object. One of those, is the distinct lack of a pleasant fragrance. Not to put too fine a point on it, but shit stinks. Now, here's where I fell into a bottomless pit of confusion. Most people normally say something "stinks" when it's not to their liking. So why would you want to be "the shit"? For one, you'd be constantly hitting the fan. Although, I suppose since ceiling fans are rarer in the states than in India, it's considerably safer being "the shit" in the US.

Lest someone interprets these comments as distinctly anti-American. I'd like to point out that some british slangs also make no sense to me. The best instance is the usage of the word "bollocks". Now, this is normally used when things aren't going your way. For those who don't know, this word is a slang for testicles. I suppose that's ok since people the world over seem to be obsessed with this structure of male anatomy.

In India, a testicle is coarsely referred to as dice. Last I checked, the dice I used for board games was cuboidal so perhaps Indians need to study anatomy or visit the nearest plastic surgeon. Similarly, Americans (regardless of gender) never tire of asseverating that they have the 'balls' to attempt some feat of dare-devilry or another. It makes you wonder why women don't claim to have the ovaries to do XYZ. Anyhow, I am meandering. The brits aren't satisfied with merely having the 'bollocks' to do xyz. They have to have the 'dog's bollocks' for feats of bravado. For a medically minded fellow, the idea is a bit vexing. Do the British constantly ponder getting a testicular xenograft from a dog? The thought is rather macabre, wouldn't you agree?

In the end, I feel a bit cheated. The things is, to appear normal in society I am forced to use some senseless slangs. For instance, I have to ask (in some irritation): "What is this shit?" when I clearly know that it isn't shit. Why, I ask myself, did I spend years mastering English and reading the works of PG Wodehouse to whom I owe my (perhaps antiquated) vocabulary. I ought to have listened to music from "da [neighbour]hood" to better prepare me for communication in this modern world.

I remember the words of this british cove who said: "I know two slang words: swell and lousy. I think swell is lousy." I agree.