CNN just published an interesting article on DJ Rekha [asx movie], a South Asian who was recently nominated for Best DJ by New York Magazine. Her real name is Rekha Malhotra — but in the US she’s pretty much known as the Queen of Bhangra. I went to NYC a year ago and my uncle and I went to SOBs. It’s a jazz/hip hop/R&B club in the heart of NYC that hosts a wide variety of popular artists every night but is known for its Basement Bhangra party every first Thursday of the month. If you ever learn about the popularity of bhangra/fusion in the U.S., Basement Bhangra will always be mentioned — and DJ Rekha founded it. It’s pretty cool to see South Asians (or anyone for that matter) coming from a traditional culture and pushing their cultural boundaries to do new and influential things in a completely different environment.. but still keeping that traditional flavor (in the case of Rekha it’d be bhangra mixed with house/reggae/hip hop). I … probably couldn’t do anything like that as a software engineer, but in anything else.. well, that’s an inspiration.
October 16, 2006
October 11, 2006
“Our data, which estimate that 654,965 or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has died in this, the largest major international conflict of the 21st century, should be of grave concern to everyone.”
October 9, 2006
September 18, 2006
I got it through TechNet, but now MS has opened it to the general public to download. You can get a product key on the spot and it can be used on up to 10 computers. Although Vista RC1 is pretty nice, i’m wondering how this RC1/RTMness will play into the final version’s shipment. I’m guessing MS will ship Vista through Windows Update and have customers pay online. In terms of ease of use that would be great.. but it basically means that if you go for the “free” upgrade to RC1 now, you’re headed down the road of having to pay $400 when your RC1 version doesn’t work anymore (since it’s impossible to roll back to XP). Eh, Vista is pretty nice so.. oh well. It doesn’t really matter too much if you put your files on a different partition or hard drive, separate from the Windows installation. If you do have to do a new install of XP over Vista when the time comes it won’t hose anything.
September 15, 2006
I made my decision tonight.
August, 2007: I’m moving to Seattle…!
August 28, 2006
My last statement’s balance was 800 bucks. A desk, a bookshelf, a bed, mattress, sheets, bathroom stuff, all kinds of crap. Added to that — I spent 15 minutes of my first day in the apartment locked in my bathroom (apparently you should never close a door that doesn’t have a doorknob) before I busted through the door. I also spent the next day after that locked outside of my room (my absent-minded landlord didn’t have the key to my room so “Ramon” had to come the next day and drill my doorknob, resulting in a day without my room doorknob and my bathroom doorknob).
Too much stress.
At least my classes are pretty slack. The only thing I really have to worry about is Operating Systems, Graphic Design, my IBM job, and the MS Student Partner stuff. I had to drive to RTP today for my orientation and IBM laptop. I think in the next few weeks MS is sending me a tablet PC too.. and a Treo with a free data plan. Crazy. So I’ll have three laptops, my desktop, a Treo, and the Cingular 2125 I have now. Not really sure what i’m going to do with all of them yet…
Yesterday I bought an audio cable with couplers and finally got the surround sound working with the PS2… I think my ears (and my neighbors’ ears) are bleeding now. So classes are going well and my car is awesome.. still have to get used to directions and the bus schedule, but eh, it’ll happen eventually.
The apartment as a whole is looking pretty nice now. We got some bar stools, a bar set, and a painting to hang over the bar. Pretty much all we need…. Andrew also brought a flower-print living room rug to match our pink carpet. Thanks, Andrew. Just kidding.. I guess it makes it looks cozy.
Oh, I also got my Snakes on a Plane poster today.
Now I have to go watch the movie.
August 26, 2006
Our work on iFold is going to be published in Bioinformatics, an Oxford Journal. I wrote up the part on the frontend and Dan did the backend. Our clients, scientists from the med school, wrote up a few things too. Writing a manuscript on iFold is pretty amazing. I have no idea how we were able to get it into two pages.. there’s so much stuff to talk about.
So yeah, awesome… my first published paper. Since i’m not going into research it might be my last too, but oh well, heh.
August 18, 2006
Undoubtedly, there is a lot in life we take for granted. It’s hard to imagine living without the ability to talk, walk, or think like we do now. You’ve probably seen a few disabled people in your life — the truth of it is, they simply want to live a normal life just like anyone else. I came across this story today…it completely moved me. It’s a story about a father-son team that competes in marathons and triathlons. It really shows how much of an influence we can have on a disabled person’s life and how much of an influence they can have on ours.
August 16, 2006
Time magazine just published a great article entitled “Who Needs Harvard” on why the current Ivy League colleges are, in summary, overrated. The basic tagline is that an elite career doesn’t stem from an elite college.
They also gave a list of only 25 schools across the country named as the “New Ivies” — “schools with exceptional educational programs and campus offerings that have seen a rise in stature to rival the Ivy League and other powerhouses in competing for top students.” Sweet.
August 9, 2006
This clip has been blazing across the internet. It’s amazing because George is able to completely rebut every one of the reporter’s biased questions and statements. Most of us live in a world where the general public’s opinions and thoughts are completely influenced by the media. This clip shows just how scary that can be.
Edit — the last statement “Anna” makes is just completely stupid and shows the total bias that Sky News and other media organizations have toward this conflict. How dare she say Galloway is being offensive against Israeli families. Here are the numbers, Anna:
- 1,187 Lebanese civilians killed, ONE THIRD are children and babies
- 4,000 Lebanese civilians injured
- 1,000,000 Lebanese civilians homeless and displaced
- 75 Israelis killed
We should mourn the deaths of Israeli soldiers, but we should not forget about the thousands of Lebanese civilians killed.
