lazy me = a lot to post in one blog

delaying the posting for this long only makes it that more difficult.

the highlight of my weekend would have to be my birthday party. I know what you're thinking, my birthday was last month so how the hell does that make any sense. Well, it turns out in some weird twisted plan this was supposedly done as a ploy to throw me a suprise birthday party. And.. it worked. Even after the token surprise was yelled I still did not comprehend what was going on. It took awhile for things to sink in and when they did, it all started to make sense. It is sort of shameful that I didn't figure it out, but the whole throwing the party a month after one's actual birthday was enough to prevent myself from connecting it all together. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I certainly cannot complain about the new influx of cash from the birthday money and my first pay cheque.

work is actually turning into work now. Now that I've learned their stat program I'm in a position to write reports for random market strategists at company X (beyondschatworth suggested it would be a good idea to now be more discrete). It can be time consuming but I hope to get the reports done as soon as possible so I can move on to some more entertaining stuff, hopefully market forecasting down the line. From my brief discussions with some on this forecasting, it turns out it is a lot like a physics lab. I know I like to hear about the value of nano in the real world so I'll throw this out there. You set up your experiment, which is like a market survery or data mining, take your results and analyze. You apply different models and see what fits best. Once you get a model that fits, try to explain how it makes sense in accordance with what is measured, extrapolate and you've forecasted. So there you go. Nano is applicable in the world of market research, go ahead and feel good about yourself.

onto the tv shows... there is TONS to write for this.

24... the two hour finale. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with how the missile thing turned out, it was sort of expected. The real surprise came with the "killing" of Jack Bauer, the identity that is. Next season should be very interesting, I do not see how Jack can at all return to CTU in any sort of capacity, so for once I think we're gonna see some big changes in the upcoming season. Too bad I'm gonna have to wait till January of 2006.

OTH.. if you haven't downloaded don't read on.

weird, weird, weird. I have no clue what's going on with that. They've thrown everything up into the air. Every character is a mystery.

Brooke - does she like Lucas? is she gonna come back at the end of the summer?
Peyton - how is she gonna handle jack leaving and wtf is with this lady who claims to be her mother?
Lucas - scrrrrewed. He used to have everyone, not anymore. Brooke is gone, nathan doesn't want to have anything to do with him and his mom is halfway round the world. sorry man
Nathan - does he go to high flyers? take Haley back? tough decision
et.. etc.. I could on and on

I don't think many of are actually interested in that, so I'm gonna end there.

see ya

it's that time of the year

my nightly schedule nowadays is pretty much blocked out for tv. There's 24, the OC, and One Tree Hill. All of which I'm mildly obsessed with and are all functioning at top-notch levels of entertainment and nearing their respective finale's.

24
I've just learned from good old yahoo news, which I personally find to be a lot better than google (most popular is not always best!), tells of 24 being renewed for two more seasons on fox. That's nuts! What started off as a one season speciality show will turn into at least a 7-season series. I guess I'll be following along for at least two more years. I can only hope that they bring back Kim next year in some sort of capacity. Currently, the show is heading into its two hour finale next week with the same sort of suspense we've come to expect. Millions are about to die and Jack has to make another one of those, what's more important my best friend or ten million americans type decisions. It would be interesting to see them change things around in the show, ie. put Jack in a different position and KEEP HIM THERE. He always ends up being head of field ops one way or the other.

OC
Thanks to a nano meeting that ran a bit long on Thursday and me falling off to asleep trying to wait for the time-shifted version, I missed the OC episode. And to further my luck it turns out the MPAA bastards have shut down btfenet, leaving piratebay as the only functioning torrent place I know of. It took me almost a full two-days to download the show, but in the end it was worth it. A lot happened in that one episode. I personally feel that particular episode could even stand alone as a season finale, the only problem being that there weren't enough cliffhangers. I'm at least glad to see summer and seth back together... again, hopefully it'll last a bit longer this time.

OTH
Discussion of this nights episode ahead, so be careful.

Things have seemed to take a major turn in the show, particularly on the whole nathan and haley issue. I can't really see how the two of them can end up together in next weeks finale, so some of the hardcore nathan fans are gonna be disappointed. And then there's lucas and brooke, which they've managed to successfully delay for one more week bringing back some of the painful memories from OTH past when the love triangle was in play. Something big is going to happen and as it stands now I can only make random guesses at what it might be.

that's all for the tv shows.....

Work has not changed much over the past while. Still setting up things and figuring stuff out. Some of the number cruching I have to do can be a bit mind-numbing but hopefully I won't need to do much of that down the road.

Lastly, I've been reading War of the Worlds by mr. wells and in the book there is constant reference to a "heat ray" used by the martians against the humans. When I visualize it I imagine a large light sabre so it almost seems that mr. lucas may have borrowed that particular idea from mr wells. I just wanted to mention that as it sort of ties into last weeks oc episode.

that's all for now. bye bye.

DB2, CM, SAP, SCM, WAS, WSMQ, ISV, VAR......

you thought nano characterization acronyms were bad the one's I'm encountering these days are much worse. Who knew how complicated the whole software industry was, it's really insane. There's the front-end, back-end and stuff inbetween. And IBM seems to have their hand in everything.

I got the opportunity the other day to watch some footage from a focus group. For those that may be unfamiliar that's when a market research firm brings in a certain group of people and asks them questions to trigger discussion all while a bunch of analysts watch behind a two-way mirror. It was pretty interesting watching the footage. Not just because of what the people were saying but due to their physical movements and reactions to different things. For instance, whenever the moderator would hand out something for the group to fill out, this one guy would quickly fill it out, finish it, put his paper and pen down and proceed to rock back and forth in his chair all while having a smirk on his face. I could so picture this guy back in high school along with all his fellow geeky A/V club buddies.

work overall is pretty chill right now. I've luckily been put under another student who is taking his time training me. It's great. Today alone I dicked around for several hours chilling in what they call "Oasis Rooms" and playing pool. I could get used to working there full-time that is of course if there was never any work to do.

Tommorow looks like another write off with a two-hour lunch and me needing to leave early for the nanoclub meeting. Work is looking pretty good right now....

That's all, bye for now.

second day

First off, the solution. I am not entirely certain of the four cases I have written down but they do seem to make sense. Let me know if there are problems.

From what I've learned on the first day I'm not even sure how much I'm allowed to discuss on my blog due to supposed "sensitive" IBM information. They're nuts about that stuff. I have a bunch of passwords for everything imaginable. And if you happen to lose your laptop they sit you in front of bunch of executives and grill you as well as your manager. No matter how nice you manager is, I doubt they'd be very pleased with you after that.

So, I've still done pretty much nothing besides setting up a bunch of accounts, renaming passwords etc.. but I have a feeling that's still a lot more than some of you research fellows. For instance, mr. funnybowlingalleyfall's sole task for his first week was to get familiar with his environment.

One thing I have started to notice is the many different type of people I see at work. Since I'm at the software lab there are mix of some business and mostly software type people. The software people can range from your quiet, reserved programmer to your outgoing "I love to code and I'm gonna let everyone know" programmer. There aren't many of the business type but so far they seem to be nice and helpful.

I'm gonna get some breakfast. bye for now.

day one

Today was my first day at IBM.

I arrived at the main lobby precisely at 8:30am to find about 100 fellow interns waiting around. A good portion of the day was like frosh week. We walked around in large groups, no one seemed to know what was going on and there were those random keeners who asked lots of questions. The main focus seemed to be a bunch of boring presentations on all types of security, privacy and protocol. One of the highlights of these boring presentations being when mr. throwslibrarybooksaway yelled "shut up" into his cellphone with everyone else thinking he was referring to the speaker. One of the more odd moments of the day was when I first arrived and introduced myself to a random intern. He seemed nice enough and had actually worked at IBM for the two previous summers. However, things between us took a turn for the worse when he drew up a math problem during the presentations and passed it over to me. I'm sure he had good intentions but I honestly did not feel like following through with the problem as I was sort of paying attention to the presentation and I knew I didn't really stand a chance. So, he explained the answer to me and I a nodded in agreement with everything he said. I have posted the question below and will attempt to write out a solution for tommorow.

It also turned out that less than a third of the students at the lab are from ut. There were of course a lot of waterloosers and others from across canada. I did finally get to meet the other intern in my department who seems nice enough. She's a management/engineering student from mcmaster. So it seems that ibm posts their jobs everywhere and interviews tons of people. Lastly, I learned that I will be getting a new laptop which I can look forward to tommorow. Till then will be two hours of fresh new OC.

Try the problem! and let me know if you don't understand.

Mohit

life as a commuter and CMM

I headed downtown once again today like a regular commuter. I don't get how you commuters do it. I ran into three wackos on the way down alone. WTF. And then there was the whole rush down st. george to make my pseudoappointment to get my cell phone back. It's hard not to be in control of how quickly you get somewhere. I can't drive faster or walk quicker, you have no choice but to wait it out for the next train. It's no wonder why commuters are much more likely to suffer heart attacks (quoting hornyhamster). I did however get my phone back which made the commute worthwhile. It was all a bunch of bureacratic crap as I was sent from office to office finally to get my phone with a minor warning not to do it again. I also got a chance to read over the engineering calender in detail on the way back. It turns out they've totally revambed the eng sci curriculum for the incoming class for next year. And that we only have (4) choices for our forth year. The calendar is actually a piece of crap for us nanos as very few courses are listed as possible electives. There are a bunch more if you consult that e-mail that Morag sent awhile back.

Onto CMM (chad michael murray). If you consult the front-page of your entertainment section of your toronto star you'll see mister CMM outside the brass rail at what seems to be very early this morning. WTF is wrong with this guy. He has sophia bush as his wife and the bastard still needs to frequent establishments like that. The guy needs help. And how does this fit into his supposed nice guy image with films like a cinderalla story and other bs crap like that. I think I've lost whatever respect I've had for that guy.

Work starts tommorow so I'll likely be posting.

all for now
Mohit

gotta keep posting

I headed downtown today as a regular commuter. The plan was the retrieve my cell phone, get a new battery for my watch, play some halo, do some shopping at the eaton's center and watch the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy. Only halo and hhgttg happened. Lots of halo to be more precise. I guess things never change.

the movie turned out to be pretty entertaining. It was all very random but it somehow ended up fitting altogether in the end. Following the movie we got a glimpse of the madness outside much music that was an interview with the stars of house of wax, mainly CMM (chad michael murray) obsessed teenage girls and a few horny teenage boys who likely have a thing for paris. We headed to the crowd and saw mr. beyondschatworth jump into what seemed to be a line for 8 grade girl's gym to gain entry into the inner barrier. Hornyhamster, mmm-donut and I took the more "pretend we don't care" sort of approach and waited more on the perimeter. We got our quick looks at Elisha and Paris from a distance and decided to head off. Mr. beyondschatworth faired much better and claims to have seen them from very close of course giving us the very obvious line "they looked very good". No one needs to remind me that Elisha looks very good, I am well aware of that fact.

After all was finished I did get back in time to catch OTH. Another very interesting episode with a lot more drama in store. I can see it all building up to a large season finale.

all for now
bye.

still recovering

Friday was a rollercoaster ride. From the stealing of my cellphone by a nazi vigilator in the exam at 2, to me stumbling back to the appartment at about 4 in the morning with mr. beyondschatworth, it was a night to remember.

Firstly, I must stress that I hate that nazi vigilaor. wtf, give me a break. Okay, I'm an idiot, I missed her repeated warnings but as soon as I heard that annoying voice I started to tune her out. And what was with the two profs who didn't defend me but rather took the side of the vigilator. We're supposed to be on the same side and they bowed down to that bitch.

ahhh.......... whatever, I didn't want that to ruin my day so I shrugged her off. I hope to get the phone back on Monday or Tuesday when I head back downtown to catch the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy.

And then was the start of the night out with the nanos (+mr. infra and mr. jesterhat). First on the agenda was heading way down south to mr. greenjeans at the eaton's center. It turned out to be a nice place with good food and a good atmosphere. Time flew bye and before we knew it, we needed to rush out to the bowling alley uptown. A memorable experience indeed. We definitely need to get some of the video from Fone's camera and post it online. The personal highlight being when mr. tennis took a nasty fall on the bowling lane while trying to get an action shot of mr. infra. Only rising seconds later to blurt out "I'm alright, the camera's okay". We were literally laughing our asses off. It's too bad we didn't get that on video, mr. tennis would've become infamous as an ebaumsworld casualty.

I'll skip ahead to the post-bowling part as I'm sure that won't be discussed in much detail in other blogs either by blogger discretion, lack of memory of what happened, or simply lazy bloggers (referring to jesterhat and mr. beyondschatworth).

On the subway back a good majority of the nanos headed down bloor to find a suitable drinking hole. We ended up at gabby's and a perfect round table that seemed to be out of king arthur's court. It wasn't long before the drinks were flowing and I was learning some very interesting things about our fellow nanos. In summary, I learned never to mess with mr. spaceelevator and mr. whatifyoushootherinthehead and that drinking cc is not the best way to get drunk as was evident from mr. mmm-donut. Following what seemed to be several hours, mr. thatsnotthe1stBZ, mr. jesterhat, mr. beyondschatworth, mr. givemeonemoresecnogami and I took the familiar drunken walk back to st. mikes in hopes of catching the night's OC and apprentice. Not a good idea. About an hour later we emerged without having watched anything, our cookie cravings satisfied and a different respect for some fellow nanos. Finally, everyone minus the st. mikes two headed back to mario kart central to play the obligatory game before calling it a night.

A great night indeed.

The only part that sucked was me needing to wake up at 8 in the morning, pack up all my crap and move it all. All while having a nice piercing heacache and little to no energy.

I have to say it was the best post-end of exam party we've ever had. There were tons of people involved (over 20 nanos) and great planning (thanks fo mr. beyondchatworth and mr. insanelysmallcell).

I will miss our little nano community and I will make it a personal mission to visit as often as I can in the school year on supposed nano-club related reasons.

I will also continue posting throught PEY and hope to see regular posting from everyone else as well. I want to hear bout those embarassing moments in the lab and those office space type experiences.

that's all for now.