Funny prof quotes

I found this site that gives some assorted quotes from professors in premier higher degree educational institutes. (read: MIT, Stanford, Berkeley etc) I found some of them absolutely hilarious, and i daresay those who are goin abroad for higher studies can expect some really geeky humor. Here are some of the most hilarious ones:

“The best way to do that is with… reagents that probably don’t
exist, which is why that’s not such a great way to do that.”

(after finishing his presentation) “Why is everyone watching me?”

“He went to Switzerland and took injections of baboon prostates.
Then he wrote these poems.” on Wordsworth

“Titanic is just Romeo and Juliet. And an iceberg.”

“Even if we think ‘that man has a cork up his butt,’ we don’t _say_ it…”

Subject: 8.08 Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
“There are (N + f - 1)! / [N! (f - 1)!] ways to permute my balls.”

Subject: 8.04 Quantum Mechanics
“By geometry, … [pause] … Well, just by looking at it actually.”

Subject: ASU CSC210 Data Structures
“We want to take these components and see if we can grope them–er,
group them into sets”.

Subject: 8.08 Statistical and Quantum Physics
“The partition function is an animal which was invented in chapter 6.
It is not a fundamental animal, but it is a convenient animal.”

“Tarzan knew E=3NkT even before Einstein. Jane didn’t know; he had to
tell her … that’s what marriage is all about.” (after a long discussion of how even in the jungle you need to know about specific heats so that you can warm up your coconut milk)

“The partition function has to be clear to you. . . like honey has to be
clear. Or maple syrup. It will work much better if you think of it as
maple syrup.”

“When multiple metal atoms get together, their valence electrons run
wild, like kids in a hippie commune.”

I won’t give you a transparent proof. I’ll give you the most obscure proof I can find.

That’s outside the scope of this course. That’s in the next course, which you won’t take.

This is a true fact, like all facts.

How many people don’t know omega is the cube-root of unity?
That’s a lie; I just told you.

When something is beautiful and elegant, it is of no help in actual computation.

“F” isn’t a function anymore. It’s just the letter that comes after “e”.

"A finite plane is a very good approximation to an infinite plane."

"My efforts to simplify it have led to complexifying it."

"OK. I'll work on it, and you'll work on it, and we'll discuss it when it's too late.''

"It looks like the hypothesis has nothing to do with the solution. That makes a good theorem."

"Where the pressure is a maximum, the displacement is zero. On the other hand, where the displacement is zero, the pressure is a maximum."

Set theory is ... the kind of muddy water where logicians like to swim.

However, it's a very infinite set.

Well, let’s just defer that. Maybe we’ll defer that off to infinity.

But of course that takes some thinking. So let’s omit proving that.

“At certain critical values of b, something terrible is going to happen.”

“These are Maxwell’s equations, and you can find them on any MIT t-shirt.”

“We do what mathematicians always do: we assume all physical constants are equal to 1. Well, except maybe the square root of 2 pi, but I usually assume the square root of 2 pi is equal to 1, too.”

“Let’s take a tube of toilet paper without the ends — often called a cylinder.”

(Trying to derive as much as he could without any actual calculation:) “Of course, at some point we have to know SOMETHING.”

“There is no motivation for doing what we’re going to do.” -before giving some twisted derivation

“Riemann wrote this in an eight-page paper around 100 years ago, and mathematicians have been trying to understand it ever since. Of course, it _was_ written in German…”

"Notice the nonobvious insensitivity of the rhs to reciprocating Y.” - Referring to the method of computing the average value of a function over a closed interval by integration…

“This is one of those things which you probably already understand but won’t after I’m finished explaining it.”

“We’ll call this one mu. Do you all know what mu is? If nothing, higher education gives you a deeper understanding of greek”

“The sum of the heights of eight Canadians is close enough to infinity…”

While discussing multivariable max/min problems: “It’s obvious that there’s a maximum…it’s obvious to me, anyway, and I’m giving the lecture.”

“Oh my god, it’s working!”

“All I’ve done is shrink it from its former greatness.”

“This is the only time during a lecture that I am going to show off.”

“I would like to summarize a hundred years of statistics in the next ten minutes. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“You can address each point separately byte by byte, er, bit by bit, by bytes…”

“logic programming: reducing programming to a previously unsolved problem.”

“I misunderstood your question, but it was a good one.”

“If not a biggest element, then certainly an element than which no other element is bigger.”

(clearly spoken by a computer science professor…) “In digital systems you have to take into account things that _almost_ work. And when I say `almost work’ I mean it doesn’t really work.”

This would be visible if it were visible, but it’s not.

“So a girl is like a system failure.” (while calculating the number of expected childern a couple would have before they had a girl)

Too much pipelineing is bad for the soul.

“There is a point I want to make.” *pause* “That was my point.”

“A linear cat is a cat that when you tug on this ear it says “meow,” and when you tug on the other ear it says “meow,” and when you tug on both ears it says it twice as loud. [...] There are no linear cats.”

“You may have noticed that I ran out of letters a while ago.”

“No hardcore math people here…?” “then I can get away with this.”

All of your hard work sometimes gets reduced to a good figure.

“Don’t worry, I can’t pass the exams either.”

“I’m not trying to say anything interesting.”

“Look - a review session is just like sex. You can tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you, or you can not tell me what you want, and you’ll just get screwed.”

Yea, long post, but i loved it!

Changing demographies

A serious post, to show im not always clowning and bufooning around.
Someone asked me the other day, 'Which party do you support?'
On the surface, i might have replied with nonchalance 'i support no political party, they're all just the same - corrupt, selfish and without vision.' Later, on a closer inspection, however, i found that i do have a soft spot for the right wing parties like the BJP. This self realization somewhat disconcerted me for a moment, left me wondering whether there was inadvertently a touch of communalism in me. Almost immediately, i dismiss this notion. The reason why i support the right wing parties is because they are much more likely to follow an agenda of reforms and development than others. It is by this yardstick that governments are supposed to be measured, not according to the degree of appeasement of one community or section of people. Why should such a simple yardstick be colored with the muck of regional and communal politics ? Why do the governments that are supposed to be the torch wielders and initiators of progress need to be bogged down with the completely counterproductive acts of appeasing this section and that group ?
Coming to the recent developments, which started out as local, but unsurprisingly assumed national proportions, the arrest of Mr. Raj Thackeray of the MNS (in)fame.
Early next year, in all probability, i shall be exercising my right to vote. The trouble, however, is choosing whom to vote for. I have never been a supporter of strong-arm tactics of some political parties like the Shiv Sena. However, the current Maharashtra government is just a synonym for corruption and stagnancy. The way i see it, i have to choose the lesser of the two evils. Just about a few days ago, i thought i had almost decided that progress and development take precedence, even if marred by regional tirades. I still feel that the Shiv Sena and its allies in the state would be much better for overall development than the Democratic front govt. (whose dismal performance we have been seeing for the past 10 years).
However, the brazen sedition by Raj Thackeray and the unflinching claim of the Shiv Sena that it is actually responsible for the dastardly acts of urban terrorism, forces me to rethink my stand. Mr Raj Thackeray was born with a silver spoon, in the powerful house of the Thackerays. Not given the prominence that perhaps he desired, he left his uncle's party and formed his own. Hardly having known any privation, he perhaps does not realize the value of things he takes for granted. Sitting in his mansion, he dictates his minions to decimate the poor man's attempt at a decent living. His fanatical followers go on a rampage destroying taxis and busses and shops without realizing that entire lives have been spent in acquiring them. And what about all those who have sustained bodily harm? Will Mr. Raj Thackeray step forward and donate his eyes, arms and legs to those who have suffered at the hands of his minions for a crime that is no more than appearing for an exam ? What will he do if his son is beaten up in the US for snatching jobs of the locals ? Agreed, local youth are unemployed. Agreed, they are going through difficult times. But it is not that there is no level playing field. There is no reservation for north indians. Everyone can write the exam. And they get selected on their own merit. Moreover, this is Mumbai, Mr. Thackeray . Where else would people turn up for jobs, if not the commercial capital of India?
I regard Raj Thackeray as no more than a stray diseased dog whose brain is addled, and which goes about biting every other person it sets its eyes upon. Even now i have no doubt that the Democratic fron govt is still the worst bet for Maharashtra as far as development and progress are concerened. My frustration, however, is not that the 'dog catcher' Government is as indolent and stagnant as ever about this arrogant defiance of civil decorum, but the fact that once again, in the name of divisive politics, progress and development have been forced to take a backseat.
PS: I found there to be glaring similarities between Raj Thackeray and Hitler.
Just as Western powers during the 1930s let Hitler flourish hoping that he would destroy the soviet union and with it, the danger of communism, so too is this government giving MNS a free rein hoping it would divide the Shiv Sena's vote bank. Like Hitler at his time, Raj has a fanatical following in people blinded by mindless aggression . Violence, for both, has been the primary tool of expression. Both are characterized by inflammatory speeches demonizing other cultures. Things look really ominous from this perspective. Going by the current govt. response, however, one's best bet would be to hope the dog succumbs to its disease.

The (sc)roll out of the next big thing

When one is in college, especially one where attendance, classes etc are not mandatory, and where students spend their lives getting wasted away without gaining an ounce of knowledge, and where the internet speed is so brilliant that people eventually manage to live by without it, it is not surprising to find them completely weaning away from regular thinking. It is only when we step into the outside world, that we miss the comforts we so much took for granted.

To those of you who are currently in an office space of roughly 1000 sq feet, with people moving all around you whilst you pretend to be working on something in front of the computer that is so important that you can’t notice anything, while all you actually do is try and squeeze in a small period of time, say, at least a few seconds when there’s no one behind your back so you can sneak peek into sites as simple as Dilbert’s blog, which obviously won’t be taken in good humor by the office people if they catch you reading it, this will be a familiar feeling. However, since I know that I am not a world famous blogger, and that the handful of people who actually put up with all this nonsense are not likely to have experienced such situations, either because they are still in that abode of joblessness, college, or because their stations do not qualify within miles of the above mentioned criteria, this might not particularly qualify as a basic necessity. However, I suggest you hold on, because you never know, you might just be the next one!

After that massive preamble, lemme come to the point. Due to the above-mentioned extreme circumstances, I am unable to savor the use of net when I get it. Instead, I have to pretend to be extremely interested in some web pages pertaining to some arcane topic quite beyond my ability of comprehension in this environment.

So, I need an invention from you comp sci guys. Actually branch is no bar. Im just assuming that going by the average knowledge of CDCs among engineers, I reckon Comp sci ppl are best positioned to act upon this, although the difference is not much between them n other branches on how much they know about computers. Ok, so I need some sort of mechanism to scroll a web page that is in a tab not in front of you. The tab is in the background, while you are looking at some other page on your screen. I want to scroll up or down the page in the tab that’s next to it, without actually going to it. It could be through some shortcut keys, u know, like ctrl+tab+arrows or whatever. This is so that there is lesser chance of being caught when all you are doing is scrolling a webpage. OK, if youre reading it in front of everyone, then obviously ur a dumass. But getting busted because of a stupid scroll, that’s an insult to the entire generation of such sneak peekers. Think of this as a philanthropic act for the future generations. Or maybe if the idea sells, charge for the services. Just remember who the founding father of the idea was, and give it to me for free. Of course, if you become a billionaire or something in the process, generous donations are welcome.

so whoz up to it ?

:|

The odds of being shat upon

Yes, so iv copied it from Scott Adams. Big deal. As if we all are not guilty of plagiarism in almost every sphere of life. Back to the story.
I was as usual standing at the bus stop after gettin my a** off the bed in the wee hours of the morning ( 6:45 am ). I usually stand in the Bus stop shade area, and dont have to wait for more than 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. I take pride in the precise timing that iv developed in the only 2 weeks that iv been exposed to the drudgery of work. The only way in which today was different was that i did not have to wait 5 minutes for the bus, i went and stood at the bus stop ( in the shade, i must remind you ) , i couldnt have counted to 5 that the bus arrived. And so i get out of the shade, ready to board the approaching bus in order to get the usual seat that i always occupy (read: have been occupying for 2 weeks ) .

Within those 5 seconds, a crow shit on my head.

Its aim was phenomenal. Suddenly the amount of white matter in my head increased to never before seen levels. From the bird's point of view, it must have been an irresistible target.
Credit must be given to the crow. It waited for the right opportunity and then delivered with extraordinary precision. That bastard must have been eating all night and saving it up for the right moment. The main tonnage hit right on top, but there was plenty left over for my shirt and my arm. If i hadnt seen what bird it was, i might well have thought it to be an ostrich or maybe a pterodactyl or a flying cow or an UFO full of aliens with dysentery.

Needless to say, i missed the bus. Taking an auto i go home, only to find no one in. Okay, so i cleaned up the best i could, and then walked back to the bus stop, all the way, getting reminded of the phenomenal similarities between me and what happened to Scott in New york. And then of course, thinking about the odds of being shat upon so early in the morning.

Lets say there are about 15 million people in Mumbai. Of whom lets say, and this is a reasonable estimate, about a third of the people are out on the streets at about 7 30 to 8:30 am. ( if u disagree with me, this is the starting of the peak hour, when about two-thirds of the population gets out of their homes, however counter-intuitive it might sound). So that makes it about 5 million.
Out of these people, i daresay, not more than a hundred thousand people must have got shat upon in that time frame. thats a 1/50 = .02 probability right there. Further, i was out of the shade for an estimated 5 seconds. There are 3600 seconds in an hour. That makes it a probability of .02 X 5/3600 = 0.000027 . Further, we all know that crows are not creatures of the night. In fact, a majority of crow droppings are observed during the evening time, before they go to sleep ( presumably to avoid sleepless nights ). Lets say, not more than 75 % of crows would need to down load this early in the morning. That makes it a probability of 0.000020 of being shat upon within time to travel from the bus stop to the bus.
I got straight C s in math, so thats probably wrong. All i know is that it was unlikely, and that 'my ps is shit' just got a whole new meaning.
I obviously got late today, and adding to it, my pro 3-week-deadline-but-completed-in-a-week report was discarded away casually with a remark ' this is excellent, you have really done a brilliant job' and then a completely unrelated piece of work given to me for the next 2 weeks, one which involves looking at google page results that would make a honey bee ( that btw, has to visit only about a million flowers to collect a kilo of honey, and which it does too :-\) want to go hibernate, that too on a computer that stubbornly refuses to open microsoft word if it has explorer.exe running.
So if you will excuse me, ill get going outside for now, when there is much less danger of me being a victim of specieal ( derived from species ) discrimination.

The perfect weak

Ok , so what i though had been a near perfect week, what with the godlike GRE n all, turned out quite sour in the end. Primarily because, i found out, to my utter dismay, that i hate, repeat, h.a.t.e work. I hate jobs, and everything that comes along with it. And i had to find that out during my first day at my internship. No, not the 2nd day, not the 3rd, but the 1st. Someone up there was not happy with me having a perfect week, and voila ! No, the internship aint bad. In fact, to most, it would actually seem quite nice. The people are very friendly, my instructor is quite cool, and despite his insistence on completing all the formalities like di-ary, quiz et cetera according to schedule, he is quite a nice,understanding and cool guy, one who, im sure, wont give anyone a B grade for reaching ps a minute late. No, i simply hate it. I guess its like hating having a martian frog liver for breakfast. especially if ur a veggie. i surmise its inbuilt.

So lemme get back to the beginning. It had been a near perfect week. Maybe it would have stayed that way for another day, had i not checked my alternate email address that i never check usually, but which i had given for internship communication,. Any intuition that had no doubt played a mega role in the gre earlier that week mysteriously disappeared and i did check the fateful mail that spoiled my entire sense of euphoria, actually, completely destroyed it. I had gotten a mail from the instructor, that among other things , mentioned that i had to wear formals for work. formals ! that unheard of thing that strikes fear in the most intrepid person (read: me ). I dont own anything close to formal. Unless you count that suit, which i bought out of compulsion. So here goes all my euphoria, and along with it , my glorious week. So mum drags me to one of those never-before-stepped-into formals shops . The nightmare begins.

Now on to the travel. Forty minutes is what i had thought i would have to endure. Of course, the FM radio would provide some relief. Then came the double-triple-quadruple-penta-hex-hepta-etcetra blows. I get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. My FM headset suddenly stops working.Reach registration an hour late. (which, by the way, was at a place diff from the internship place ) Which actually lasted all of 5 minutes. Then got sent to the company. Then there was an attempt on my life. Then ... screeeeeeeeech. Attempt on my life ? u bet.

They tried to kill me. I escaped, greviously injured, holding a scar for life, but alive. Yes, i almost died. Of boredom. Yes it was the book that i still cant fathom what it is really about, if not beating around the bush trying to say ' Save electricity, Save electricity !'. To make matters worse, the returning traffic was even more horrible. All this on the first day. Blah ! I guess the only bright spot ultimately was during the weekend, when i decided to join CAT classes. No no, going to classes aint my idea of fun. The teacher is hot. Most people would join up just to attend her classes. Anyways, back to the more sombre topics.

I have already got a project allotted to me. here's the catch: Only i was allotted a project. Perhaps i nodded my head a lil bit too much when the project coordinator was speaking. And along with it, a three week deadline. At the end of which i have to give a seminar. The last time i heard, people were still undergoing orientation midway september last time in all ps stations. To top it, i have to share a PC for 2-3 weeks. I get to use it for half the time. Which means half the time i am not in front of the pc. Thats like depriving a crocodile of its teeth for half the day.
And so i stay in that damned place, all day. At the current rate, at the end of this sem, ill have spent more time in the office than i have totally spent in the institute building over the past 3 years. I get so bored, so zombie-ish, that i begin to see strange patterns in things that are usually not glanced upon. For eg, who in the world would give a rats ass for a book titled : 'beeeeeeeep' (censored due to excessive risk of falling inadvertently into the wrong hands) ? well, i had to study it and absorb all i could from it.
All that of course, was before i had found out about this glorious scheme that BEST ( the bus service in Mumbai ) had started a few months ago. Buy a 20 Rs ticket, and u can travel in any bus in any direction for any time for the entire day. So i dont have to wait for my single once-a-decade frequency bus, but can jump buses every two stops, and gleefully reach home. For the first time in ...err .. wait a minute .. its not years, not months, heavens, its been just a day ! Goddamnit , whatever! for the first time in the day, i felt free. Free to get into whatever bus i like, choose the empty bus going someplace iv never heard of, over the overly crowded bus i would usually get into, and all that without taking out the wallet and handing over to the conductor anything. In fact, i quite enjoyed the power of the one, that enabled me to flash it like a VIP flashing his Identity and enter into any bus of my choice. Dang, i sound like one of those employees who have to resort to such things to give them happiness.

Therefore, i have already begun counting my remaining days in the ps station. Thats my best bet at maintaining my sanity. I just want it to end. Fast. And then i can go back to my sleeping-gaming-nowork ritual in campus.
Now i truly understand Dilbert. Iv got to read it again. ciao ( or whatever it is zombies use to sign off) !

IHDNAG AMTAHAM ?

There is a pattern observable in the recent news broadcasts. Perhaps it is a temporary fad. Or perhaps it is basically a radical new methodology. Something very opposite of what Indians are proud to have given to the world. It began, in a major way, with the Gujjar agitation. Then came to the fore the Darjeeling case. And now, the Jammu one. All these headlines have two things in common . One, they resort to insane violence to draw attention to themselves and Two, the demands have been somewhat addressed by the govts.

Is this truly the way a civilised nation works ? It is understandable , that courts and politicians are not really trustworthy, just postponing the tough work of pacifying people from all spheres. However, when was violence ever a cogent argument ? To add to this ludicrous fad, the govts are heeding to their demands. First the Gujjars got what they wanted through extensive unjustified protests. Drawing inspiration from them, the relatively quieter agitation of the gorkhas in darjeeling area have greatly intensified the agitation hoping to achieve the same. The recent Jammu agitation over the Amarnath shrine land allotment got its demands met after a state wide violent agitation. In fact, the opposition to the revoking of the deal has started violent protests in the area. Since when was violence such a profitable path ? Have we forgotten that we are , even today, proud, through the numerous history texts to have intrduced the concept of a peaceful struggle ? This retrograde to the animal-like kingdom, where might rules the roost, is certainly disconcerting.
this, i guess, if not anything else, shows elections are round the corner.