You don't know Jack!!!

I spent the whole of last year with three wonderful flat-mates. Among other things, they were huge fans of the hit TV series 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as the indestructible and indefatigable Jack Bauer.

Dev once forwarded a humorous article on Jack Bauer. The following work wonderfully well if you substitute any B-grade action hero for Jack Bauer! :P
(Jet Li, Vijaykanth and Mithunda are some names that come readily to mind. Oftentimes, my friends scandalize me by including the venerable Rajni Sir in this list... but I refuse to acquiesce!)

I'm including five of my favorites (quoted from site):

1) The city of Los Angeles once named a street after Jack Bauer in gratitude for his saving the city several times. They had to rename it after people kept dying when they tried to cross the street. No one crosses Jack Bauer and lives.

2) Once, someone tried to tell Jack Bauer a "knock knock" joke. Jack Bauer found out who was there, who they worked for, and where the goddamned bomb was.

3) When Jack Bauer was a kid, he made his mom eat Spinach.

4) Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

5) Passed out, surrounded by terrorists and nerve gas, and handcuffed to a table leg, Jack Bauer laughed to himself and said, "I have them right where I want them."

Click this link for a hundred more: You don't know Jack!

Landing on a wing and a prayer...

A wikipedia article about UA flight 232, which landed at Sioux City, Iowa after losing almost all control authority, and the tail mounted engine. The captain and a DC-10 instructor who was travelling on the flight, managed to land it as safely as possible, given the conditions.

110 passengers died. A lot more lived.

UA 232 Crash Landing.

Summer Wine

So I've been overdoing U2 today. Among other things, I rediscovered this song... this version performed on stage by Bono and the Corrs.

A very pretty duet! Enjoy: Summer Wine.

Incredulity!

The feeling in my head as I watched a seventy something lady driving a 1980-something Honda Accord overtake me on a one lane road...

Grad School

So there was this Russian researcher, who once gave a presentation in the department. What exactly it was on, I don't remember. The following anecdote was funny though. I quote to the best of my memory,

"So I first came to the US when I was in my thirties, and this was during the prime of the Cold War. I got myself an invite to visit some of America's defense establishments.

On one of my lab visits, I chanced upon a group using methodologies and results from my graduate work. I was aghast.

How could the enemy even think of doing something so underhanded?

Five minutes into the tour though, I relaxed somewhat. I was even feeling happy.

At last, someone is using my thesis!"

Every grad student dreams of becoming the next Albert Einstein when (s)he enters grad school. Somewhere down the line, realism sets in.

Ruth-Aaron numbers

So I recently came across the Ruth-Aaron numbers... They're kinda famous, and for a very interesting reason.

Let me digress... Fibonacci in the Fibonacci sequence: famous mathematician. Ramanujan and Hardy in the Hardy-Ramanujan number (1729): famous mathematicians. You kinda get the picture right?

Ruth and Aaron, though, are baseball stars!!! (Yeah, THE Ruth and THE Aaron).

Ruth-Aaron numbers are any two consecutive integers n and (n+1), the sum of whose prime factors is the same. 8 and 9 for example.

8 = 2*2*2
9 = 3*3

2+2+2 == 3+3

So Baby Ruth had the record for the most home runs ever ==> 714. His record was broken by Hank Aaron in 1974, when he completed his 715-th home run. 714 and 715 were the first observed Ruth-aaron numbers :)

The five monkeys problem!

Ok, let me admit that the version of the puzzle I heard said pirates. I felt compelled to change things to fit my monkey theme... So here goes:

So we start out with a bunch of monkeys, right? Ok, five, to be precise. These guys are logical enough to be Ayn Rand's poster boys... meaning very very logical. They are greedy (Midas++), and very very bloodthirsty (like the villain of some B-grade Bollywood movie). Bloodthirsty, did you say? Well yeah, they really really like to kill people or as the case may be... monkeys. If they don't gain anything by keeping you alive, they prefer you dead! :-o

So anyways, these guys land up on a treasure island, right? And what do they find there but a chest with one thousand gold coins (1000). Obviously, each one wants the biggest share he can get for himself. But here is where community ordering and a sense of hierarchy come in! The monkeys always answer to their leader. Second, third, fourth and last in command are well established. Maybe we should make things easier for ourselves, and just give them hierarchy numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

So here's how they divide the booty. Monkey #1 proposes a division, and by division, I mean something of the nature of 1: 200, 2: 200, 3: 200, 4: 200 and 5:200. Everyone else votes on it. A strict majority passes the proposal and everyone retires happy. And if the proposal is not passed? Monkey #1 is killed and the responsibility of division falls on M#2 and so on... till consensus is reached. A STRICT majority is needed, by the way. This means that when there are four monkeys, a proposal is passed only when three vote for it.

Its fairly obvious to see that the proposal above is not going to work. Right? Clearly, by getting rid of grandpa, everyone else can get a bigger share? Or can they? Will grandpa's guiles prevail?

What does grandpa, aka Monkey Number 1 (no, not Govinda silly), do now? Gmail me at karthikp.