Showing posts with label awesome shite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awesome shite. Show all posts

Sunday, January 17, 2010

For what leetil it is worth

Happy New Year ya'all. 2009 has been an' gone. What do I have to show for it? Well, for one thing, several of my friends moved out of towne. That felt awful. Perhaps that is what happens to everyone. Does it? Tell me, what is worse... missing friends, or not really having any and not knowing the difference? They say that some things you only start appreciating after they aren't there any more. That category certainly includes people.

My last few days in Michigan went by in a blurry. (This is a made up word which is "blur"+"a flurry"). Please cite me whenever you use it. Pradeep babu came by to defend his thesis on the 7th of December. He stayed at my place over the weekend and totally wowed me with his awesome presentation. Here is a picture of both of us not workin'

The day after Pradeep's defense, my boss wanted me to talk to this guest speaker.. who just happens to be one of the world leaders in the field I work in. That was scary. Then it was time for my own defense. Our man Nandi made the following poster... note that he should have been prepping for his own predefense research proposal, which was scheduled for the very next day....

Sara made a FB event for my own shindig. Complete with Nandi's awesome poster. Milan came down from NY to participate in the general fun. Pradeep, of course had stayed back for a couple of days to effect his thesis revisions and chuck rotten tomatoes at me. And then, before I knew it, the big day was upon me. I started out by trying to iron a shirt with the heater set too high and almost set the place on fire. After this early disaster and minor hiccups such as retrieving my committee evaluations from the graduate school half an hour before he scheduled time, and so on.. we were finally there. The talk went (I think) rather well, although I was pretty much in a state of terminal panic just before. I puked all over this bloke taking a shite in the men's room and said 'muh bad'. No, I didn't, I was just channeling 8 Mile. Our man Smith attended in a Three Wolf Moon shirt.

Anyhoo, a whole lotta phrends came down to cheer and much fun was had by all. Thanks. Really. Then the closed doors session began, and the gloves came off. That was effin' brutal, I don't mind tellin' ya'all. But they passed me with minor revisions ( I think the only person who did not get those "minor revisions" was Robert Oppenheimer). And then much merry making happened.


More updates later...

Monday, June 22, 2009

Me back






The last two weeks have been very exciting. Two weeks ago, I was at Keystone, Colorado, presenting our lab's research (on behalf of my boss, I should add, who was at a conference in Croatia). Presenting the whole lab's work, and not just my own was rather terrifying. It was very exciting to see that our work was very well received. Keystone itself is a wunnerful place to visit, with beautiful vistas and great hiking. After the morning of the talk, we (I was fortunate enough to become friends with a great group of peers) we drove up to the continental divide, which was at 11990 feet, and then legged it up to the nearest summit. That was lung-bustingly painful, but awesome. Then we drove back, at which point someone pointed out that I should have a poster. I was totally unaware that short talk presenters were also supposed to have posters. Who knew? Anyway, I slammed together something with a giant Post-it and a few marker pens. Which turned out to be quite a hit. The next day was even awesome-er, with more hiking. The conference ended with a party at which there was some dancing and cartwheeling. Yeah...

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The 21st century achiever: oh, wait, I meant something else...

Two people, Aleksey Vayner and John Fitzgerald Page, who have achieved a peculiar degree of notoreity by means of their colossally (mis)inflated ego.

As Vaynar puts it: "ignore losers, live your life openly; go all out; do it with passion".. dear Gawd, but he spouts cliches like.. I don't know.. I am out of cliches here.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

So we went to Hell





Yeah, on the 2nd of November, just for a lark. Hell is a tiny hamlet in Michigan, occasionally a popular tourist destination. They even boast a tiny post office where you can send yourself or anyone else a postcard marked from Hell. And if you ask for 'the works', they will be happy to singe the edges of the card with a jury rigged cigarette lighter which fires a scary 8 inch long flame. Quite cool. Highly recommended to everyone.

Monday, November 24, 2008

All things weird and wonderful

If I have not already mentioned it, then one of the main sources of weirdness in human endeavour is Dark Roasted Blend. Read on and enjoy.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Zombies!

I saw the new version of the Dawn of the Dead last night... and I am going to stock up on canned food, batteries .. the works... maybe a shortwave radio...

Snyder has given us totally badarse zombies.. these mothers move FAST.. no dickin' around waiting for live meat to walk by.. they come and get what the want... and like Ben Johnson on steroids (oh, well, we all know what that is like... ).. but seriously, George Romero's social commentary was wasted.. but what we got in turn were awesome characters and some great action... this is much closer to 28 Days Later than the original Dawn of the Dead, but no complaints from me! Go Snyder!

This is why I louvv reddit soo much!!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Of datacentres and supercomputers

I came across this article about the snazziest datacentre in the world, built 30 metres below downtown Stockholm, designed to survive a Hydrogen bomb, and with artificial waterfalls and real plants, this place rocks. Take a look.

While we are on the topic of Europeans doing crazy shite, the MareNostrum supercomputer at Barcelona is actually located inside a chapel. Go figure.

(Image credits: Wikipedia)

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Thursday, October 30, 2008

CERN's magnets also quench!

A magnet quench, I mean a superconducting magnet quench (we do not give a shite about that silly room temp. stuff) is an avalanche process which starts with the superconducting coil jumping its critical temperature. At which it becomes resistive. Hence dissipating heat. Hence heating its liquid helium sheath. Hence becoming more resistive. Hence heating further. This is an avalanche process which culminates in the coil reaching room temperature and the helium boiling off. NMR rooms usually have helium vent lines in case of such quenches. Otherwise any occupants in the room would probably asphyxiate. This is a cool viddy of such a quench under controlled conditions. Magnets can be recovered after a quench, but it is a time consuming and expensive process (especially in the liquid helium it takes to cool the coils down again). Apparently this has happened at CERN. And they have hundreds of such magnets!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Young Sethu's research experience in haiku

I am a champ at PCR
My vision in science ranges far, really far.
RNA spectroscopy lies in the depths of my soul
While working late nights, I listen to rock and roll.