Heard of Mazlan Binthi Othman? A Malaysian astrophysicist and Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. (Yes, there is one.)
But the best is yet to come. If aliens ever do land on Earth, make no mistake, and step aside to let this 58-year old Malaysian greet them. Mazlan Othman has been tasked with coordinating humanity's response to an extraterrestrial visit, if ever required.
Apparently, with the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting around other stars, the detection of alien life is becoming more and more likely.
"The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day human kind will received signals from extraterrestrials.", said the soon-to-be appointed Space Ambassador for Earth. And don't worry, she's perfect for the job, armed with a Ph.D in Physics and an expertise in "Space Law" (Laws governing human activities in outer space: e.g. ownership of land on other planets or moons etc.).
Am I the only one who finds this weird?
Anyhow, at least now you know where to point your finger at when faced with a "Take me to your leader."
This morning, I received two "pings" on G-Talk from my batchmates at IIT-Kharagpur, and both seemed to be in an excited state. The first one pinged a link that most of them had put on as their Status Message, some story from Outlook. It seemed IIT-Kharagpur had yet again emerged as the No.1 Engg.college in the country in a survey that's normally conducted around this time of the year, during the admissions-counselling period. Not only did it beat the closest competitor, IIT-B, by a huge margin of 90 points, it had also topped the Architecture Schools list.
The implication might have been that IIT-Kgp was in fact the best place for an undergraduate student to be in the country. The 2nd ping, however, was quite in contradiction. It was not reconfirmed by anyone else, no news source carried it, and most said that the news wasn't being released "due to ongoing IIT-JEE counselling at IIT-Kgp." Somehow, a lone news source is carrying a report on the incident as of now. Oh, and the incident. Yeah, another student died at IIT-Kgp, nothing new...
Police said they broke into the room at the Madan Mohan Malaviyya hostel in the campus and recovered the body of Manoj Kumar (18) after the hostel cleaning staff complained of a stench emanating from it.
Police said prima facie it appeared to be a case of suicide and investigations were on.
A first year student of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture Department, Manoj Kumar, hailing from Rajasthan, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room in Madan Mohan Malviya Hall of Residence, IIT Kgp. It was just a couple of months ago, that another fourth year student had committed suicide in his hostel room. And who can forget the death of Rohit Kumar due to the institute run Hospital's medical negligence.
A 3rd year dies of Medical Negligence, a fourth year commits suicide a month later, and a fresher now. My batch had already lost Anshu to negligence in the first year itself. And we still are the best institute in the country.
Is this how complacent we've become? Is this the best place for a student to be? Is counselling for potential students more important than counselling suicide probables and taking care of existing students?
We have regular student-administration meetings at the campus, which all students are open to attend. I shall be attending them regularly the coming semester onwards, and shall raise and follow up on issues regarding the state of the hospital as well as allocation of doctors, counsellors and psychologists.
I'm just doing what I do when I come across something worth sharing... and when I have no time or ideas for a new post and still want to maintain a respectable frequency. Here's the second best commencement speech I've come across, second only to Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech. Incidentally neither of these possess a college degree.
Please, please, please go through it. Funniest common-cement speech (by a non-aluminium) I've come across, Ellen DeGeneres taking on Tulane University's Class of 2009.
Transcript:
Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished guests - you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher. And thank you to all the graduating class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and haven't slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can't graduate 'til I finish, so listen up.
When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes. Then I went to look up what commencement meant. Which would have been easy if I had a dictionary, but most of the books in our house are Portia's, and they're all written in Australian. So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning.
Commencement: common, and cement. Common cement. You commonly see cement on sidewalks. Sidewalks have cracks, and if you step on a crack, you break your mother's back. So there's that. But I'm honored that you've asked me here to speak at your common cement.
I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus - alumini - aluminum - alumis - you had to graduate from this school. And I didn't go to college here, and I don't know if President Cowan knows, I didn't go to any college at all. Any college. And I'm not saying you wasted your time, or money, but look at me, I"m a huge celebrity.
Although I did graduate from the school of hard knocks, our mascot was the knockers. I spent a lot of time here growing up. My mom worked at (?) and I would go there every time I needed to steal something out of her purse. But why am I here today? Clearly not to steal, you're too far away and I'd never get away with it.
I'm here because of you. Because I can't think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class. I mean, look at you all, wearing your robes. Usually when you're wearing a robe at 10 in the morning, it means you've given up. I'm here because I love New Orleans. I was born and raised here, I spent my formative years here, and like you, while I was living here I only did laundry six times. When I finished school, I was completely lost. And by school, I mean middle school, but I went ahead and finished high school anyway. And I - I really, I had no ambition, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I did everything from - I shucked oysters, I was a hostess, I was a bartender, I was a waitress, I painted houses, I sold vaccuum cleaners, I had no idea. And I thought I'd just finally settle in some job, and I would make enough money to pay my rent, maybe have basic cable, maybe not, I didn't really have a plan, my point is that, by the time I was your age, I really thought I knew who I was, but I had no idea. Like for example, when I was your age, I was dating men. So what I'm saying is, when you're older, most of you will be gay. Anyone writing this stuff down? Parents?
Anyway, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and the way I ended up on this path was from a very tragic event. I was maybe 19, and my girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident. And I passed the accident, and I didn't know it was her and I kept going, and I found out shortly after that, it was her. And I was living in a basement apartment, I had no money, I had no heat, no air, I had a mattress on the floor and the apartment was infested with fleas. And I was soul-searching, I was like, why is she suddenly gone, and there are fleas here? I don't understand, there must be a purpose, and wouldn't it be so convenient if we could pick up the phone and call God, and ask these questions.
And I started writing and what poured out of me was an imaginary conversation with God, which was one-sided, and I finished writing it and I looked at it and I said to myself, and I hadn't even been doing stand-up, ever, there was no club in town. I said, "I'm gonna do this on the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson"- at the time he was the king - "and I'm gonna be the first woman in the history of the show to be called over to sit down." And several years later, I was the first woman in the history of the show, and only woman in the history of the show to sit down, because of that phone conversation with God that I wrote. And I started this path of stand-up and it was successful and it was great, but it was hard, because I was trying to please everybody and I had this secret that I was keeping, that I was gay. And I thought if people found out they wouldn't like me, they wouldn't laugh at me.
Then my career turned into - I got my own sitcom, and that was very successful, another level of success. And I thought, what if they find out I'm gay, then they'll never watch, and this was a long time ago, this was when we just had white presidents - this was back, many years ago - and I finally decided that I was living with so much shame, and so much fear, that I just couldn't live that way anymore, and I decided to come out and make it creative. And my character would come out at the same time, and it wasn't to make a political statement, it wasn't to do anything other than to free myself up from this heaviness that I was carrying around, and I just wanted to be honest. And I thought, "What's the worst that could happen? I can lose my career". I did. I lost my career. The show was cancelled after six years, without even telling me, I read it in the paper. The phone didn't ring for three years. I had no offers. Nobody wanted to touch me at all. Yet, I was getting letters from kids that almost committed suicide, but didn't, because of what I did. And I realised that I had a purpose. And it wasn't just about me and it wasn't about celebrity, but I felt like I was being punished... it was a bad time, I was angry, I was sad, and then I was offered a talkshow. And the people that offered me the talkshow tried to sell it. And most stations didn't want to pick it up. Most people didn't want to buy it because they thought nobody would watch me.
Really when I look back on it, I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, it was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most important thing is, is to be true to yourself. Ultimately, that's what's gotten me to this place. I don't live in fear, I'm free, I have no secrets. and I know I'll always be ok, because no matter what, I know who I am. So In conclusion, when I was younger I thought success was something different. I thought when I grow up, I want to be famous. I want to be a star. I want to be in movies. When I grow up I want to see the world, drive nice cars, I want to have groupies. To quote the Pussycat Dolls. How many people thought it was "boobies", by the way? It's not, it's "groupies".
But my idea of success is different today. And as you grow, you'll realise the definition of success changes. For many of you, today, success is being able to hold down 20 shots of tequila. For me, the most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity, and not to give into peer pressure. to try to be something that you're not. To live your life as an honest and compassionate person. to contribute in some way. So to conclude my conclusion: follow your passion, stay true to yourself. Never follow anyone else's path, unless you're in the woods and you're lost and you see a path, and by all means you should follow that. Don't give advice, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Don't take anyone's advice. So my advice to you is to be true to yourself and everything will be fine.
And I know that a lot of you are concerned about your future, but there's no need to worry. The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine. It's gonna be great. You've already survived a hurricane. What else can happen to you? And as I mentioned before, some of the most devastating things that happen to you will teach you the most. And now you know the right questions to ask in your first job interview. Like, "Is it above sea level?" . So to conclude my conclusion that I've previously concluded, in the common cement speech, I guess what I'm trying to say is life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see, you'll have more beads than you know what to do with. And you'll be drunk, most of the time. So the Katrina class of 2009, I say congratulations and if you don't remember a thing I said today, remember this: you're gonna be ok, dum de dum dum dum, just dance.
CADIE, the world’s first "Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity" is a computer that’s come alive and is making changes at Google. “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.”
YouTube just flails with upside down video viewing.
Google Australia introduces the gBall, which will change Australian rules football as we know it.
There is also a featured YouTube video of a panda by the user ‘cadiesingularity’ with a profile stating “Cadie - the world’s first Cognitive Auto-Heuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity”.
When browsing Street View in Google Maps, a panda is shown in the bottom right map instead of the yellow person usually shown.
There is also a “CADIE’s recommended places for humans” link in Google Maps, which leads to the “Panda Mapplet” and includes several marked locations with “CADIE’s” commentary. Under Redmond WA a link is listed which will rick roll the viewer.
I'll end this post with an observation that I agree with:
April 1 - The day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. -- Mark Twain
Two new appointments have been made to fill in the voids in administration left after last week’s events.
Prof. Souvik Bhattacharya of the Department of Mechanical Engineering has taken up the post of Dean of Student Affairs, while Prof. Gautam Sinha has taken the position of Chairman of B C Roy Technology Hospital.
--Quoting Scholar's Avenue, celebrating 4 years of being IIT Kharagpur's Campus Newspaper
For the uninitiated, students had demanded the resignation of the Director, the Dean of Student Affairs and the Chairman of B.C.Roy Technology Hospital after the unfortunate incident last week, now referred to as Black Sunday.
Both of the newly appointed faculty members are highly respected by the student community at IIT-Kgp as being very dedicated and diligent.
UPDATE: Gaurav Tomar is fine now and taking rest at home after getting discharged from Apollo Hospital after 19 long days.
(Find comment by Gaurav confirming the same below.)
‘I am taking Mr. Gaurav Tomar out of B.C. Roy Technology Hospital on my own risk and the hospital would not be held responsible if anything unfortunate happens to him.’
We were asked to sign this piece of parchment by the BC Roy Officials before we took him to Meerut, his hometown.
I thank God that we signed and took him to Meerut and then to Apollo Hospital, Delhi where he is right now, in ICU, on dialysis struggling for his life.
Many of you may be familiar with the unfortunate incident of Rohit Kumar, but this incident was not one off. There are many more such incidents one of which I am sharing with you.
Gaurav Tomar is a 5th Year Student of Civil Engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He is to receive his B. Tech + M.Tech (Dual) Degree in two months time, and has already been placed in the Indian Registrar of Shipping with a lucrative salary. He has been the Governor of Hindi Technology Dramatics Society, IIT Kharagpur and has also been the Hindi Dramatics Captain of Lala Lajpat Rai Hall of Residence for 2 years.
Two days before Holi he was running fever and admitted himself into BC Roy Hospital, IIT Kharagpur. The attending doctor ran a series of tests on him which included a couple of blood tests, a urine test and was scheduled for an ultrasound. He was put on Glucose as he couldn’t eat anything. We used to visit him daily bringing him stuff to eat which he couldn’t eat. He constantly ran a temperature and complained of severe stomach ache. The doctor used to give him 4 injections everyday of indigestion. We used to ask the doctor what was wrong with him and we used to listen to a new disease every day. According to the well trained and experienced doctors of the hospital Gaurav had Typhoid, Jaundice, Urinary Tract Infection and what not. When asked if they had actually detected Typhoid in his blood tests before giving him its medicines, they replied that it was an educated guess according to his fever patterns. Even after staying in the Hospital for 6 days, taking their medicines, Gaurav’s situation deteriorated.
I remember that on Friday they decided to ultrasound his stomach due to the stomach pain he complained of, but they had to wait till Monday for the test since the Ultrasound Specialist came only on Monday. Even the nurses and compounders used to misbehave with him. Once when he had to go to the toilet he rang the bell for the nurse. When he came he replied angrily that “Tumko toilet tabhi jana hota hai jab hum lete hote hain?” Gaurav had no words. Another time the Nurse came with a new bottle of glucose and saw the old one was still half full. To prevent another visit later she increased the speed of the glucose without the consent of either the doctor or the patient. Isn’t this called playing with the patient’s life?
When Gaurav’s situation worsened to the point when he couldn’t even speak, we talked to the doctor about taking him to a better medical facility where at least he could be diagnosed properly. The Doctor was not willing to do so. He asked for 3 more days of time to diagnose him. Thankfully we didn’t listen to him and signed the above mentioned document. Gaurav was then flown to Meerut. On Sunday, that is the day of Rohit’s demise, we received a call from Gaurav’s mother. She was inconsolable and said that he has been in Apollo Hospital, Delhi ICU for 4 days and had been diagnosed with malignant malaria. Moreover the doctor there said that had he been late by a day, the parasite would have affected the brain and may have cost him his life. He is still in ICU, on dialysis, as the malarial parasite has already affected his kidneys. Right now as I write 5 of my friends are on their way to Delhi to see him.
-- As narrated by Friends and Well-wishers of Gaurav Tomar
Let us all pray for Mr. Gaurav Tomar’s speedy recovery and not let the voice that has risen against B.C.Roy Technology Hospital die down.
I'm publishing this from a small cyber-cafe outside the IIT-campus, since the internet/LAN has been completely shut down in the campus, which you can further read why?
Rohit Kumar, a 3rd year undergraduate student of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur died this morning due to lack of basic medical facilities at B.C. Roy "Hospital", the civic IIT-run hospital responsible for providing healthcare facilities to IIT-Kharagpur campus residents, which includes students, faculty members, staff and other employees.
Rohit complained of a headache on Saturday evening after a basketball match. He visited B.C.Roy Hospital, no confirmation of the occurrence there is available. During the course of the night his condition worsened and the next morning he again visited the hospital with excruciating pain. He was asked to go back after being prescribed painkillers. While going back to his Hostel, he collapsed and hit his head on the cowtrap. He was rushed back to the hospital, where he was told to wait for the Doctor to arrive in "five minutes". After three hours of "five minutes", the Doctor arrived but refused to touch him. He was referred to Apollo Hospital, Kolkata since he required treatment by a neurologist. He was sent in an ambulance also containing, besides the driver, a pharmacist and two of his friends, but no trained paramedic. Considering the profuse bleeding and worsening condition, they decided to go for Medinipur Hospital instead. He was declared 'brought dead' at Medinipur Hospital.
B.C.Roy has had a history of medical negligence, with several serious medical blunders taking place frequently, and any critical case being needed to rushed as far as Kolkata, despite the administration's claim of developing it into a "Multi-speciality medical research centre", whereas, ironically, not a single paisa has been spent in this regard. No other medical facility is available on the 2100 acre campus, while the strength of students and need for medical care is growing multi-fold every year.
Earlier, the campus newspaper, Scholar's Avenue, had been "banned" for 6 months for publishing an investigative report on the sorry state of the hospital.
Outraged students assembled outside the Director's bungalow aiming for a silent protest. However, the Director refused to attend to the students, not ready to acknowledge the problem with IIT-Kgp's medical facilities. In addition to this he was ignorant of the details of the whole incident. This lead to greater outrage and more than 2000 students gheraoed the residence.
Finally making an appearance on the balcony of the residence he expressed his SYMPATHY and appreciated that we had all gathered for the cause but promised no action. It was demanded that he answer the questions put up by the protesting students. He eventually came out with security where he made blunt promises like suspending the doctor and registering a police case against the "CULPRIT" making it evident that he was trying to laugh off the matter. This caused further unrest after which he slunk away into his house. Exasperated students aggressively demanded the director's resignation since the life of every student is his responsibility and he has not addressed to the much obvious problem even after it has been blatantly pointed out to him many a times in open house discussions with students earlier, as recent as one month ago.
What is even more amusing are the loose comments that the authorities repeatedly made - the Deputy Director said "Whats the big deal..."
Rohit's memory will forever remain embedded in our hearts. May his soul rest in peace...
If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw.
--George W.Bush
US President George Bush, who was on a surprise visit to Iraq, was in for a bit of surprise himself. An Iraqi journalist just thanked him with all his sole.
Muntadhar al-Zaiydi, a local television correspondent, in Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki's palace threw his pair of shoes, one-by-one, at President Bush during a joint press conference with Maliki. The president quickly had to duck to avoid the shoes, while Maliki stretched out his right hand to try to catch the second one. Neither leader was hit. As he threw the shoes the man, Zaiyadi yelled "This is a farewell kiss, dog!" and, "This is the end!". It may be noted that just over 5 weeks remain before Dubya hands over the Presidency to Barack Obama.
Displaying the soles of shoes or throwing shoes is not polite behavior anywhere, but in much of the Arab world the shoe is used as a special tool of insult or affront. Before the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein had a mosaic of former President George H.W. Bush on the ground at the entrance to the main foreign hotel in Baghdad, the Al-Rashid. You had to step on Bush's face to get in.
Right after the fall of Saddam, men beat his ubiquitous posters with their shoes.
Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away.
Bush, who reacted spryly as he saw his assailant winding up, joked about the incident, saying, "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want you to know. "
As security grabbed the man, White House press secretary Dana Perino got knocked beneath her eye by a microphone and ended up with a small shiner.
After order had been restored to the room, the man could still be heard screaming from another room. Al-Baghdadiya's bureau chief told the Associated Press that he had no idea what prompted Mr Zaidi to attack President Bush, although reports say he was once kidnapped by a militia and beaten up.
Shrugging, Bush said, "So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?"
"It's one way to gain attention," he said. "It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers."
Necessity is the mother of all inventions. If that be so, then 'Mail Goggles' is just another offspring conceived under the influence of alcohol, with Google Labs playing midwife. Before you start accusing me of Blogging under alcoholic influence, I present to you the ultimate Sobriety Test that cops never had...................... MATHS!!!!!
In case you're confused by the above (which puts your BAC in question), I would like to introduce you to Google Labs' latest innovation, Mail Goggles, which checks your sobriety (Soberness, if you will) before you send any Friday late night Gmail. "And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?" (in the words of Jon Perlow, Gmail Engineer). Sample this:
When I first heard of this thing, I thought it was one of their hoaxes, until I read it on their own Blog. You can choose the days, timings (By default set to Friday & Saturday, 10 pm - 4 am) and difficulty levels of the test as well. In case you're wondering, the above is difficulty level 5, the highest. Which brings us to one very important bug: it's practically useless for a good number of Gmail users, especially the ones living outside the United States of America(unless you're an Asian immigrant of course).
In case you're an IITian reading this, you know what I'm talking about. I cannot think of a single classmate of mine who can't solve the above in their sleep (or even boozing + sleep). Baby Math is not Rocket Science afterall. Once the Autumn break is over, I'm sure many of us would be giving a try, the only result being our Dean's overflowing Inbox.
But Google has the last word on it. I wonder if 'Goggles' refer to how a drunk Employee spelled Google (Which itself was probably an attempt to spell the number Googol with the aid of Vodka). In case it was an American, he may not even be drunk!!!
