TMI

This post is possibly going to be one of those TMI posts - too much info!!
It might not be a bad idea for you to close the browser right now or simply watch the Wolverine trailer below and then quit.

Are you still here? Well don't say i didn't warn you. Possibly i have made too much of the following so now that read the below, it will seem too inconsequential. There is no winning!!

I have bunions. You don't know what it is? well click on the word!! basically it is a slight deformity of the foot, extremely common, that makes you have a little bump next to the base of my big toe. My right foot's bunion is bigger. It's hereditary and related to how you place your feet and the bunching up of the toes. Recently a friend suggested i use toe spacers to separate my toes and ensure that the bones don't bunch up. I bought them yesterday (finally) and am wearing them today.. and so far, they seem interesting. I am hopeful!!! It's amazing that I didn't know about them earlier. I will have to keep wearing them and write a follow up blog later on, on their effectiveness. They won't reverse the condition but they supposedly improve comfort.
ok, back to wolverine ;-)

Dreamz

I had a horrible dream last night. I was one of the grownup kids of a big family, one father who had had multiple wives. Suddenly all the kids belonging to the other mothers started being murdered except for our mother who had three daughters (i was one of them). One of my sisters had another daughter as well. Our father had just been released from jail and we knew it was him, but we didn't know why he was doing this and to whom. It was really stressful, trying not to provoke the father and trying to escape and wondering if he was going to also kill his granddaughter. In the meanwhile we find out that he is killing them because he loved our mother the best and since she had passed away, this was his way of showing his affection for her and only her. In the end, just when he is about to murder his granddaughter, we attack him and take him down. I woke up before knowing exactly what happened though, if he had been totally taken down.
What a dream...

Why doesn't the pot boil????

You've heard of the saying "A watched pot never boils" right?
well, today for me the appropriate saying is "A watched inbox doesn't receive the email that you're waiting for".

I'm waiting... sigh!

JCVD

Last night, Atlanta and I went to watch JCVD with our karate club. The movie is very good, extremely stressful but funny and sad actually. I really felt for van Damme by the end of the movie. I really recommend watching it. Osu!!
Meanwhile, enjoy the following teaser trailer that they showed at Cannes.

Most popular pages

It is always interesting to see who accesses my blog and how they get there. In particular, I have two posts which appear very popular with random people.
The first is my post on funny myths. I have no idea why, but I get a lot of hits on this page from google searches.
The second one which is more interesting is my post on the legend behind the song Sari Galin. My original post was based on what my Turkish friend had told me about it since I couldn't find information about this song anywhere (and it is a most beautiful song, with many translations). Seems I had touched upon a well, touchy topic, as you can see by reading the comments that people have left there. I got another comment yesterday and when i looked on google, I think i am very high up on the search list. It's really very interesting... and as Atlas said, there is so much hate in the world!!

My police hour

A couple of days ago I had an interesting run in with the police. I went to park my car near a shop when i noticed that a policeman on his bike was behind me. He wasn't flashing any lights but was obviously following me, so i started wondering how long he had been following me! I quickly parked the car and stayed in my seat wondering what I had done wrong - I wasn't driving fast, I had put my blinkers on when I had turned, I wasn't talking on the phone... what had I done? While I was waiting, he was standing behind the car, reading off the number plate and talking on his walkie-talkie. I wasn't sure if I should get out of the car or not... I'd heard all these stories and some of the cops I had seen in the US were so scary. I started to open the door slowly, giving him plenty of time to object, in case I wasn't following protocol.
Since he didn't say anything I got out and half frightened out of my skin, I approached the policeman. However, the guy was the nicest man ever. I was so nervous and he was all friendly with a big smile and very talkative. Seems my registration was overdue. He wrote me a ticket but I kept thanking him for not scaring me. I think I must have been very embarrassing and I don't get embarrassed that easily, so you can imagine...!!!
Afterward I just kept laughing at myself and what a fool I must have seemed to the guy!!

Privacy

One of the topics I find really interesting in my research work is privacy. There are so many different types and levels of privacy that can be achieved. There is also usually a cost associated with the privacy level. The funny thing is that although people in academia (like me) think privacy is SUCH an important thing, most people don't care about it all that much! Showcase numero 1: seems 300 MIT kids were willing to trade all voice and data privacy with an iphone.

Anyway I wasn't planning on writing about this stuff! I wanted to write about two pet peeves of mine related to privacy. First is when you are at your desk, behind the computer and someone comes up to talk to you. Now the first thing they do is they look at your monitor and see what you were doing.... grrr!! So very rude!
The second pet peeve involves people posting up pictures of people without asking their permission. This is annoying and I think it is VERY rude. It is a total invasion of their privacy and yet... how can some people not realize it? if anyone wants to put up photos of me on the internet, so that anyone can have access to it, they better tell me and ask my permission.
Grrr.

Dijkstra's words

I love this quote by Dijkstra:
"The usual way in which we plan today for tomorrow is in yesterday's vocabulary."
It comes from an article written 20 years ago by Edsger Dijkstra, which discusses the state of computer science education.

Socratic method

This is a really interesting article about teaching using asking instead of telling (the Socratic method). The author teaches primary school children about binary arithmetic. The article contains the questions and responses of the class and I really enjoyed going thru the logic and teaching method.