Compassionate Pittsburghers

It's been a great weekend. The weather was just marvelous on Friday, rare occasions when one can sport a T-shirt and enjoy the outdoors. Saturday was nice too, I went out for a longish group run with the AID team, a well spent day. Sunday came and the weather was brilliant again. It would be absolute crime to stay indoors. Basu seemed up for doing something, Aaditya wanted to bike and I couldn't refuse. So the plan was made for Basu and I to go for a long walk. Aaditya would join us on the bike somewhere along the trail.

So Basu and I headed out on our long walk, a distance of around 10K. I had the trail mapped out on my head so I was acting as the default guide. We started from home, walked on the pavements, crossed a few roads, and entered the woods of Frick Park. The park was bare and austere in its beauty as the leaves had not yet returned. One could also make out the topology of the hills, which were otherwise obscured in the summer. It was very liberating to walk on the trails, and Basu headed off for a jog on sections of the trail. Slowly we started veering off the main trails and into less beaten tracks. The occasional jogger/ biker was much rarer to come by. My mind started drifting and I started thinking about how pleasantly surprised I had been to run into Prof Alan Black a few weeks back on these same trails. Really, this section was very desolate and one can feel the thick silence. Occasionally the tweet of a bird would be a welcome distraction.

Finally we reached the Monongahela river, climbed up to the waterfront bridge and started walking over to the other side. The sound of cars and trucks roaring past was in stark contrast to the silence of the trails we had just left behind. Aaditya joined us in the middle of the bridge and we walked over to the other side. We took the bus back from waterfront back to campus and Aaditya put his bike on the bus rack. From campus Aaditya biked back home while Basu and I took the escort. Sometime before we reached home, I got a call from Aaditya. "Help, I'm lying at the intersection of 5th and Shady and severely cramped". That couldn't be good. I promised I would be there in a few minutes. It was quite as he described, he was lying on the pavement with his bike and helmet on his head, unable to move his legs. Basu and I tried helping to get some life back into his legs and helping him stand up. Eventually he managed to get up and hobble back home. What was really nice and heart warming was that upto four cars stopped on this busy intersection, and people got off to ask if we needed any help. Yes, Pittsburghers may appear rough and loud, but they are surely nice at heart.

Clouds of darkness

What is the reason behind my reluctance in posting blogs ? It is certainly not because I am too busy to type a few lines every week. Nor is it because of a lack of things to say. It might be due to the reason that I am finding my thoughts to have been transformed into an increasingly dark nature. Some of these thoughts relate to god and to the human race. They are certainly not populist thoughts. They are not yet mature enough to be disseminated to others. I am sure there are others in my plight. Others who have been tormented much more than me. Many were driven to madness and others to depression. Am I in a dark place in my life ? Certainly not. I am more awake, aware and more lively than every before. At times, I feel this urge to pen down my thoughts and post it. But not yet, Not yet. My ideas are still embryonic. They need reinforcement from the great thinkers of the past. For which I am reading like never before. My ideas need an outlet for mass dissemination, for which I will create an agent and a story. The blog posts will return, but not yet.

A cold and snowy day

The weather forecast for today said snow showers with gusty winds. A perfect setting stage for christmas eve. A time to spend time at home with friends and family, drinking wine and having sumptuous dinners. Certainly not the time to venture outside and go for a run. That's exactly what I did.

Just a few days back, I watched a movie called Ultramarathon Marathon Man : Endurance 50. It was about a crazy guy called Dean Karnazes who vowed to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days and he did it. He is a very humble and down to earth guy who just loves running really really long. He also happens to be my personal hero. He wrote a book called Ultramarathon man : Confessions of an all night runner. Being a big fan of his I decided that I needed to get this book. And what better way than to run to the book store and get it.

On a whim I put on my running shoes. Donned my winter running gear and off I went. I ran the 6 miles from university to the Barnes and Noble store in the waterfront. It was cold and snowy, and there were many moments when I wondered what the hell was I doing. The part where I ran on the bridge connecting homestead over the river was splendid. I was running with the wind , so the snow flakes seemed still, suspended in the air. I finally got to the store, my face flushed with the cold. I walked up to the store lady and asked her about the book. There was just one copy left. I felt like I had totally earned this book and paid homage in my own little way to the great man that is Dean Karnazes.

I want to run

I want to run. Run like Forrest. I mean to really really keep running. Run far far away. At first there will be paved roads in the concrete jungle. Towering edifices of man's creations will surround me. Then there will come the ghettos, a reminder of the ills that plague society. I will run nimbly avoiding the feces. Then there will come the rich villas, with the manicured lawns. I will swiftly run past the pretty poodles and their prettier masters. Then there will come the freeways, those 6 lane conduits to far far away. I will jump over the barrier onto bylanes and I will run, run into the fields. Then there will come cattle and there will come streams. I will run past them as they mulch and gurgle away. Then there will come the railroad , cutting across the land. I will run along the tracks as the train thunders past. Then there will come the forest, a paradise of green. I will run like a mohawk and follow the wolves. Then there will come the mountains, there will come the ice. I will be chilled to the bone and my legs will hurt. But I will run, run as far as I can, with the eagle watching over me. Then there will come loneliness, a strange new friend. One who is always there but never by your side. And I will run , run into the desert. My throat will be parched and my tongue will be dry. The rattlesnakes and the scorpions will watch as I run past them. Finally, there will come a cliff. A cliff overlooking a vast ocean. I will stretch out my arms and in a perfect 10.0 jump, I will dive into the ocean. I will fall through the sky, and the wind will rush past my ears. Then there will be a splash, and I will dive deep deep under. It will be worth it, certainly it will.

Fireflies

What an amazing sight...! Tiny little flash bulbs going off every now and then. Trees decorated with little lights. Almost seemed like christmas is here. There's something about these bugs that brings so much joy. It makes me feel like a kid again. Reminds of a Durga Puja that I spent in Patna once. I want to run and catch these things. Collect a jar full of these flashing bugs. Heck, it even reminded me of the glowworm in James and the Giant peach.The one that became the torch of lady liberty and saved the city of its electric bills.

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes

I live in the city of Pittsburgh. Incidentally this is where Andy Warhol was born. The city has a museum in his honor. A visit to this museum was in my list of things to do for a long time. I made it happen today. A bit of wikishagging and some fundae from my officemate later I felt equipped enough to take on a day of modern art. Not just any modern art, but Pop art of Americana. The essential principle of pop-art is to take the everyday banal object and elevate it to the status of art. Coke bottles, soup cans, carton boxes, anything can become art. Thus like pop-music, anybody can appreciate pop-art. This is quite an empowering concept. Art traditionally belongs to the bigwigs, the connoisseurs. The man on main street can make no claim about art. But hey, pop art was this radical commie concept. Everyone now wielded the wand of making art. Andy Warhol in a sense was a revolutionary.

One of the famous things that he said was that "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes". Bravo.

The importance of good health

Health really is wealth. I mean literally. Those who have had the fortune of having to go through the US healthcare system will know what I am talking about. Even back home in India things are not so much different. The quality of medical care seems to be rapidly segregating into those who can afford big checks and those who can't. So yes, health is wealth. It's a good maxim to remember.

Most of my friends and those of my age suffer from arrogance. Arrogance of the youth. We believe that nothing can stop of us. We are young, life is good and everything is hunky dory. Smoking, drinking and eating junk does not affect us. How can it ? after all we are young. Only those weird uncle types with balding hair and flabby skin are the ones who have all these problems. so let's make merry while it lasts. After all we are young.

To your good health..!

It dudnt matter

One of the major headaches in statistical theory is what to do if your sample is too small. Really statistics is all about lots of numbers. In essence, statistics is damn good at predicting what the herd would do but extremely inaccurate when it comes to the individual.

So here is a thought for all self respecting flocks out there. Please do not burden your opinions on others, or think that the world hinges around your very existence,or for that matter whether your twitter message says if you pooped today or not. It dudnt matter..! It dudnt matter if you eat organic or if you buy cosmetics that haven't been tested on animals. It dudnt matter if you chose Mac over PC, it dudnt matter. Yes, it dudnt. There are far greater forces in motion in this world, that will render your say absolutely worthless.

Yes, stop wasting time, feeling too important.

A warmer day

As the snow melts around me, I feel a sense of loss. Like something beautiful, something pristine, is leaving this world. But somewhere at the back of my mind,I know that the cycle will repeat and the snow will all come back. I find that this devastating beauty is exceeded only by its harshness .Somehow, it makes the human spirit stronger, firmer and more willing. In Neitzsche like thinking, the winter acts like a bridge between and 'man' and 'ubermansch'. But there is no guarantee in this and one can very easily become lazy and fearful of the cold, refusing to stray out of the heated interiors. It is like a big ball on the very tip of a hill. It can go either way, to ubermansch or to sloth. It just needs a small push.

P.S. I dont know why I wrote this. The cold is getting to me.

The Ugly side

There is an ugly side to everything. It is the eternal balance of life. Good must be balanced by evil. Light by Darkness. Kindness by cruely. Love by hate. It's a very old idea , this balance one. The Zoroastrians liked it, so did the Tai Chi masters. It's not hard to find the ugly side. Everything has an ugly side. Look beyond the shiny silver wrapper and you will see the ugly side. The tastiest dish has an ugly side, the perfect hobby has an ugly side, the perfect relationship has an ugly side. Yes the clown cries too. Don't be so smug, you have an ugly side too. Don't need to look too far.

Crunchy

White washed surroundings. Cold air. Clear blue skies. Christmas decorations. Slushy road. White dusted cars. Whitened tree branches. People minding own business. Less people. Me walking to supermarket. Crunch crunch. Sound under my bootheels. Crunch crunch. Very bloggable. Crunch crunch. Crunch crunch......

White Dust

A late night movie was the culprit for me waking up pretty late this morning. I was feeling a bit guilty for having overstayed my visit to the bed. As I glanced outside the window, a strange sight awaited me. It looked as if there were lots of really big white dust particles flying around. Like what I would see if I were walking through a pillow making factory in full operation. For a second my brain became ultimately confused. You know, like when you see something for the first time in your life, you tend to relate it to something you have already seen in the past. As I ambled towards the window pretty excited, the garden outside that used to be green was covered with the same white dust. The rooftops were white. The white dust had settled on the cars outside. Truly, my first snowfall was delightfully confusing.

Opinionated people are happier

Why are opinionated people happier ?

please tell me.
Seeking your comments.

Updates

I am posting after many days now. I think the last sensible post I made was quite some time back. I really haven't had any time to browse over my blog. My first semester in grad school was quite an experience. A roller coaster ride. Ups and downs, the whole package. There are too many things that I want to talk about, so let me share a few.

I love my office space. Yes, my department has been kind enough to give me a nice office and some very comfortable chairs. The entire CS dept at CMU moved into the spanking new Gates building recently, and so far space has never been a problem. I have my own corner in campus and it is where I live most of the time. I guess the concept of having an office, where I can walk into anytime of the day or the night, has pampered me into a state of taking the office for granted. Frankly I can't imagine having to study at home or lounge about in the public spaces. I wouldnt have been able to do half my work were it not for my office. I love my office.

I came to terms with the fact that my body is a machine. If it gets food and rest, it works fine. The importance of free food in my life is immense. Most often, I dont get time or motivation to prepare an elaborate meal at home. Not surprisingly, eating habits have become very random, And also with the financial constraints that I am living under buying food is really a luxury. So free food, be it a pizza, mexican burritos and even the rare wraps is a great treat. Free food might seem very stereotypical of grad students, but it really is extremely important.

I managed to do some fun things this semester as well. Tried out my dancing abilities by learning some beginners ballroom dances such as Waltz, Quickstep, Swing and Cha-cha. Went swimming a few times. Learnt how to use gym facilities. Watched a few good movies, went to watch a theater performance, hung out with friends, partied infinitely, tried different kinds of beer, had the best birthday ever and jumped off a plane with a parachute.

But most of all, the grad school experience has been very fulfilling so far. It's not like everything has been rosy. There were some initial hurdels, some culture adjustments and some 'learning to play hardball'. But the classes are mindblowingly brilliant. I love going to Statistics class. I love listening to every word that Larry has to say and I love reading the notes that he gives out. It's like everything that he says is logically connected. There are no gaps in meaning and purpose. It's a new feeling, really, to be able to exercise your mind and solve challenging problems.

All in all, it's been good and it's been bad. But one thing is for sure, I haven't been bored.

PGR

PGR stands for "Pretty Good Race". It's for all the CS nerds at CMU. So once a year, some of them stop staring at the screen and head out on a wooded trail along the hills called the Schenley trail to run for a distance of 5km. I was there this year and my oh my was it fun..! It started with excitement, then anxiety, then questioning, then despair, then encouragement, then numbness, then longing, numbness again, then adrenaline and finally unparalleled JOY..!

At the end of this adventure, there lay awaiting us some delicious water watermelons. Yes we Mellonites like melons..!Awesome experience..!

Mining for Knowledge

'Knowledge mining' is a concept taught to computer science students about how to look for interesting patterns and structures in otherwise meaningless and large collection of data. The word 'mining' in 'knowledge mining' struck me as rather interesting. So much so that I stopped to ponder about its implications. Mining is usually associated with valuable stuff such as precious metals and stones, ores, etc. So it got me thinking, " My God..! Knowledge must be really valuable". My mind started wandering and as usual I started to form connections between hypothesis A and observation B until I was pretty sure that I had a theory C.

I won't go into this theory C for it is rather personal to me ( yes so personal that I won't post it on the blog ). However, I am glad to talk about a related topic that is of interest to me.

The topic is about what sort of jobs people like to do. I liked Nassim Nicholas Taleb's definition( He is the author of 'fooled by randomness' and 'black swan', if you haven't read it, I suggest it ). He created a dichotomy of all jobs that are out there. He labeled jobs as 'scalable' and 'non scalable'. Scalable jobs are those that give you a disproportionate amount of reward compared to the number of hours of work you do. Such as that of an artist who makes it big, a wall street trader, a politician, a drug lord, etc. These jobs are often associated with lots of glamor as there is often a chance to make it big really quick. A certain lottery, casino, gambling like factor.

On the other hand non scalable jobs give you the payback that you deserve based on the number of hours you put in and what your skill set is. The skill set is often acquired through a number of hours of hard work. These people are dentists, engineers, teachers, plumbers and even police officers. These jobs are mundane. Boring. Hardly worth bragging about. I am sure that the people doing these kind of jobs have at some point of time had doubts about their profession and often wished they were on the other side. However, Nassim advices people to take a job that is non scalable. He believes that a job where you get paid for the amount of knowledge you possess and the amount of work you put in, is a desirable job. Life is no longer indeterminant. You are the captain of your life, the cartographer of your destiny.

I agree with Nassim.

The Fence and Independence Day

As far as traditions go, Carnegie Mellon has many and we got to take part, first hand in one of it's most fun traditions. The tradition is called 'The Fence'. It is nothing but a fence in the middle of campus that people keep painting randomly during the night as a sign of protest or just to make a point.

On Independence day, we said seized the opportunity to repaint the fence with the tricolor. And guess what, Fun and Patriotism can come packaged together too..!

Bubble Theory

It's been some time since I wanted to propose this theory of mine.

It's often shocked me how some people often live inside a bubble all their life. The bubble effectively seals them from the realities of the outside world. Like a fish in a bowl. Imagine yourself as a pretty gold fish swimming inside a nice spherical bowl, and you are swimming, swimming and basically that's all you are doing. From time to time you peer outside and the world appears fuzzy to you. Everything is distorted and the green algae forming on the walls is making your vision cloudy. But you don't care, in fact that's how you want it. The fish bowl is your world, nothing exists outside it and frankly you don't care. Food is plopped into your bowl, it's good, life goes on. You get bored sometimes, so you go and bully the guppies a bit. You are careful not to antagonize the resident fighter fish. Yes, life goes on. It's not great, but it is your world and you're in perfect control of it.

That's it the goldfish example ends, there's not going to be some dramatic ending to it.

The point I am trying to make here is that people willingly construct these glass bubbles. The fish doesn't have a choice but we do. We build glass bubbles all the time. Everyone does it to a greater or lesser extent. Some build glass bubbles, others soap bubbles. No one can be excluded. There is one fundamental problem with bubbles. They don't let stuff inside. Change is painful. The fairy tale world does not wish to be disturbed. The smaller the bubble the better. The more stuff that comes inside, makes the bubble grow bigger and your world gets more difficult to understand and control. So the doctrine is to keep your bubble small and strong, preferably made of glass.

What sort of people make small glass bubbles ? and who are the people who tend towards the larger permeable soap bubbles ?
I do have an answer for this. And my answer is that the people who don't feel threatened have softer larger bubbles. And those in the quest of a larger meaning , those who are trying to find the unity amongst all things, like how the sages of my country did on top of the himalayas, they are in the pursuit of making the bubble vanish all together. They are searching for the ultimate truth, the one that makes you see the universe as it is.

I would like to do that sometime.

New blogs

Well a lot has happened in my life in the last few days and even in the last few months. Lots of bloggable material actually. But, somehow didn't feel like penning it down. It is nice to describe the world at it is and I have done it several times in the past. It makes for pleasant blogging. Blogging about incidents, about cultures, place and food. Descriptive and at the same time biased by opinion, my opinion.

What has caught my fascination off late are thoughts that come from within. Thoughts that I think, while I'm idle. No doubt influenced by things I read, hear or discuss with others. They are thoughts that have their seed and genesis deep within me. So expect more of my ruminations in the next few set of blogs.

Perfect Strangers

There is something absolutely amazing about a chance encounter with someone about whom you have no idea. No telephone numbers, no names exchanged. Conversations tend to flow freely and you find yourself wandering into territories that you would not venture into with even with someone close to you. Jokes are cracked, politicians are criticized, anecdotes are exchanged and even a local tip or two are shared. There is no pressure of tomorrow. And then, just as casually the conversation ends, you part ways, say your goodbyes and life goes on.