The IBM T42-One Amazing Laptop

The IBM T42 is the best laptop I have ever come across. I bought a 15" version with1.8 Ghz, 80GB , 512 MB RAM . It has a fingerprint reader which replaces any kind of log on screen. The reader works pretty well too! The screen is good. It has a 64MB ATI Radeon Graphics Card. It's light, about 5.7 lbs. That's way lighter than other models with the same config. Sony's starts at 7lbs! It's fast. The HDD runs at 7200 RPM which makes large programs load quickly. The frame seems sturdy and capable of putting up with hard use.
The only downside is that it's expensive. Costed about 2800$. It didnt matter for me because I was buying it for my dad and his company would be paying for it. It would be possible to get a toned down version for about 1800$. Maybe less. But it would still be a couple of hundred dollars more expensive than comparable configs from other vendors. But, I feel its worth it.

Emotional Skills 110

Getting angry/sarcastic/bitter is pointless.
a) It helps in no way to make the situation better.
b) You cause a lot of damage to yourself and to those around you.
c) It makes you feel good. So, you might say why not lose your temper. But, you are getting cheated here. You stop thinking about the damage you cause after your high. Now you need to repair the original situation and the damage you did when you lost it. More work.
=>Either solve the situation or accept it.

'Life In General'

'Life in General' has now become a little depressing. Mainly because I dont seem to be doing anything apart from sitting in the lab and sitting at home. I really should be going out and doing stuff. But it's get dark at 5! And, yes it's also cold and wet!
Can't wait to take my Thanksgiving break! Get out of the system for a week. When I return, it's just going to be a couple of weeks before I take a flight back home! Don't need to - cook, worry about food, worry about money, worry about anything actually!

My Work

I am posting after a long time. Its more because I had not much to write. Been pretty busy with my work and otherwise just lazing around. Not really been into anything 'cool' as such. Or atleast something someone will want to read about.
On a more serious note, I shall write a bit about my work. Now, I have shifted to Computational Biology. As people have started sequencing genes on a massive scale the question of effectively analyzing the data comes into the picture. I am currently working on 2 topics-
1) Phylogenetic Trees- Ways to construct the evolutionary tree of a bunch of sequences.
2) Microarray Data Analyses- There are now ways to analyze how the genes of an organism produce RNA and finally proteins under a wide number of conditions very efficeintly. Analysis of this data can help understand similarities between different types of genes.
I need to know some amount of molecular biology. I plan to take courses in the coming semesters. Once I understand the problem, it boils down to math, mostly statistical modeling and a mix of graph theory and algorithms.
The work is fun as the final result of whatever I do has potential to be relevant scientifically. I kind of never liked Computer Science, I just liked the math. This looks an ideal alternative for me, as I work in pure science without actually working in pure science. I havent been so excited about what I do, since my JEE days when I used to love my maths, physics and chemistry. Now, I am learning biology, something I dont know much about but which I find fascinating.

Webpage

Well I have created my homepage on the UIUC website. Here it is-
http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/aramani2/www/frame.html

Social Skills 110

If you dont know what to say, say nothing.
Corollary: Silence is golden.
Modification: Don't way something that you wouldn't normally say or wouldnt want someone to remember that you said.

The whole 10 miles (of 26.2 actually)!!

Well people, this weekend I ran the Chicago Marathon, well partially atleast,the last 10 miles of 26.2 .It was an experience of a lifetime. Mindblowing crowd- 40,000 people ran and a million spectators, there were bands playing every mile or so and the route went around all the parts of chicago- downtown, latina quarter, italian quarter, each quarter there were people playing the local music. There were people dressed as hens, superman- you name it. I was 'pacing' one of the other runners who was really tired. So, I wasnt really going too fast, took about 2 hours to do it. The winner did 26.2 miles in 2 hours 6 mintues.

How did all this come to be? Well, there is a charity here called Asha. Volunteers from Asha run marathons every year to raise money. This year, I volunteered to help them out with cheering and water. I ended up pacing one of other runners. In hindsight, I should have run the full distance, had no idea that
1) I could actually run 10 miles
2)Running for 2+ hours can actually be so much fun

Random Notes

I dont fell great today- too much work, too many deadlines, and a couple of other things dont really that make me feel too happy.

Shark Tale-Amazing movie. A must see. Features the voices of Will Smith, Robert de Niro, Martin Scorcese, Angelina Jolie etc. etc. Great fun.

Relationship Ramblings - Why do people act the way they do? Sometimes people do things that seem to have no apparant connection or correlation with anything you can put a finger on. Even they dont realize the consequences- everyone loses including themselves. Why? Are people intinsically somewhat unstable? How do you deal with it?

Perfumes- I bought a new perfume- Aqua di Gio. Amazing. Recommend all who want to buy a perfume to but it.

I have a round of deadlines coming next week! Need to get them finished!