The Ultimate Answer

Some of my friends seem to have been disappointed by their first-day-first-show (henceforth referred to as FDFS) experience at the movies this Friday. I was so lucky then in that respect. Yesterday, I happened to watch this wonderful movie - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - based on Douglas Adams' book - vow - I must get my hands on that soon now - blast ! I haven't been reading *anything* for a loooooong time - anyway, those of you have had the good fortune of reading this book - you will know what the story is - but for those who don't - this is about a time when the Earth was demolished to make way for a hyper-space super-highway and how Arthur Kent (the hitchhiker) manages to get a ride through the galaxy.

The best part comes when Deep Thought - the computer designed to find the answer to the ultimate question - i.e. "What is life, existence and all that ?" processes it for 7.5 million years and outputs 42 !!! Yes, the ultimate answer is 42. What a climax !! Reminds me of a time when a friend of mine had claimed that for any 2 vectors f and u, the best scale of u that fits f is square root of 2 .... but whatever !! and then the computer helpfully suggests that it was not the ultimate question and had they taken more trouble to frame the input correctly, the answer could have been more helpful. It also offers to construct this machine for them.

For this and much more geeky fun stuff ... the Hitchhiker is a must-watch ... and for me a must-read !!

Outsourcing

Interesting, to say the least, is this article in today's Tabloid Of India. After IT and BPO, now the next big thing outsourced is the school-leaving exam papers of British kids. Now I am not completely pro or anti outsourcing. I believe it has its place and importance although I do not think in the long run it is going to be beneficial to anyone. But clearly, there is some sort of outrage in the British media about this. Of course there are atrocious comments flying around that "Indians can't read English" - which is such a load of tosh - Indian English is one of the best in the World. But the weird part is this organization which is doing the outsourcing claims to be non-profit. Pray, what then is the reason ?? Do the people in Britain consider grading the papers of their young too difficult or demanding or unimportant a job ?? Or does the body simply believe that the Indians are much better at it ??

Either way, I would like you to think about what you would have felt had you been told that your 10th standard exam papers were being outsourced to Sri Lanka or Bangladesh for grading !!

Happy Days Are Here Again

It is hot out there. The temperature touched 81 today and the night is only 10 degrees cooler. I feel much better in this kind of weather. Spring time is finally here and the trees have begun to coyly exhibit some of their leaves. People have gone back to covering less of their selves and campus seems buzzing even late nights on weekdays.

I am also particularly happy because I have been playing tennis this last weekend. Cricket is the greatest but I am kind of out of form ( that seems to be the in-thing these days) . Badminton is fun but nothing can come close to a good hard game of tennis especially if it is followed by a great chug of icy cold water or a bottle of Gatorade !!