Quick fixes to reduce your heating bills

- Buy some uranium from your neighborhood store and perform some controlled fission in your mini-reactor at home to convert some mass into heat. E= mc^2 ensures that a few grams will last you for the rest of your lifetime. Comes in handy when you have a quarrel with anyone too...

- If uranium is out of stock, buy some tritium and deuterium and invent cold fusion. This should solve the whole world's energy needs.. So while you're saving on utility bills, don't forget to go to Stockholm to collect your Nobel.

- Take some uranium, absorb the radiation in large amounts, turn into a mutant with lots of fur and hibernate through winter. You can expect another phone call from Sweden to collect the prize in Medicine.

- Keep your car running in the parking lot outside all year emitting CO2, increase global warming and skip winter altogether by changing the climate of the whole planet. That way you save everyone on their heating bills. Watch out for Green Peace protestors around your car though... Also write to OPEC to get oil on whole sale rates!

- If your car breaks down, sell it... use the money you get as a consequence to buy rainforests in South America. Set the rainforests on fire and enjoy the warm weather in Wisconsin. The polar icecaps might melt and might turn Madison into Venice, so don't forget to wear your swimming trunks before swimming to work.

- Wear everything you own every night before you go to bed. Of course don't forget to wear a deodorant after adding each layer of clothes.

- Petition the university to move the University of Wisconsin, out of Wisconsin. I am sure Hawaii doesn't mind having a University of Wisconsin in Honolulu. Also you become really popular with all the chicks and obtain additional perks for coming up with the idea.

Do the right thing!

I want to do the right thing, but I don't know what it is. I am prepared to make some sacrifices for my country but I am confused. What follows are just some meandering thoughts... thinking out aloud if you will.

One area I do see a great many things lacking are in engineering education. I refer you to an excellent article by Ramanand about the sad state of affairs in COEP.(The College of Engineering, Pune) This ofcourse isn't too different from what it used to be like when I attended COEP. But what is the point of training engineers better in Computer Architecture or VLSI Design (the things I am trained for)? The best the students I could train in COEP can do is to work for Intel or Texas Instruments in India or go abroad and benefit the US again. That still doesn't directly benefit India, or does it? Most of the engineers coming out of COEP go to work for Infosys or TCS or Wipro, where they don't employ these skills in their work. So even learning VLSI Design well has little effect in that sense. I could argue that maybe if a lot many people coming out of COEP knew the basics of chip design well, maybe some could start another outsourcing company which employed a lot many people, and eventually benefit the country. So well maybe there is some potential there afterall.

I spoke to Sumeet about this once. His opinion was that being in India allows you to influence the way culture progresses in some sense. You voice your opinion about the movies, music, TV programs that you like or dislike. Initially I used to think the only way that India would gain from me if I say decided to work for Intel India, would be through taxes. But Sumeet again pointed out that even daily groceries, entertainment and all other expenses are benefiting India indirectly, which wouldn't be the case if I work in the US. So I do see myself making a contribution by being a part of the economy even if I work for a multinational company.

But now what if I decided to earn in dollars and return say a percentage of my earnings back in ASHA or some other non-profit social initiative? Would that be a more worthwhile contribution?

Another thing I would really like to see is some improvement in the traffic situation in Pune. I see that there is incredible potential for some entrepreneur to create a positive influence in this area. If we had a transportation service which takes people from home to office (say common start and end points like Kothrud to Software Technology Park) imagine how much stress would be taken off from the roads! Incrementally, if people start seeing timely, clean buses, the demand for this service will increase and the traffic on the roads would drop. Pollution will go down. The company driving the buses will earn a lot of money, employ a lot of people, serve the city well. Its WIN-WIN-WIN... I can't see why no one is trying to do anything along these lines.

Don't Mess with Texas!

The warnings against littering in Texas read that. One of my friends from Iowa, found it rather funny too. I said, "If you ever wondered why George Bush is the way he is, well this explains it. Take him to Yale and Harvard, but you still cant get Texas out of him".

Austin is a beautiful city though. The number of expressways running atop each other close to my hotel was unbelievable... at some points almost 5 expressways criss-crossing each other. The weather was awesome. I even overheard one of these Canadian girls in the Tour of Austin exclaiming "How cool is it to wear a tanktop in December!!?" I am sure it must be a quantum leap from Ontario.

But Texas is really different from other places in the US. We were all introducing ourselves at NI and all the guys from Texas schools kept making making some weird sounds like "Hook 'em!" and "Whoop!". I felt rather left out because the Badgers don't have any such cool sounds to append when you introduce yourself in front of 60 other people.

Also being in Yankee country all this while, I had never seen any monuments to Confederacy before. The Capitol at Austin was replete with them. Some of my Northern friends were kinda afraid someone might shout "Damn Yankees!!" from some corner somewhere. But the Capitol was superlative! In line with Lone Star maverickness it is 6 feet taller than the Capitol in DC. (Wisconsin's capitol is 3 feet shorter than DC's) Mt Bonnel showed me another place I could never afford to buy a house...the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and there certainly isn't a dearth of them in Austin.

National Instruments itself was a wonderful company. The recruiters conducted a very well co-ordinated interview session with a very warm human touch. Even the work environment was superior with a lot of school pride. This added to the fact that I have such good friends in Austin make me wish I could... Suvid, one of my closest friends from school took me out on Saturday for a lot of fun. Everything from good Indian food, to freshly brewed beer at Friedricksburg, and from martinis & tex-mex at Trudy's to shakin' a leg at the best clubs in town, I enjoyed all the sights and sounds (smells and tastes) of Austin. And I'd love to have more...