Marketing...

Here's a headline I saw on BBC:

Beer mat ads to recruit priests

"Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor says the church may have to change
The Catholic Church has decided to use beer mats and posters as part of a campaign to recruit more priests."


Link to the story

Done!!

Sorry it's been a while.

Two pieces of big news:

1. I'm done with MIT, and graduating next Friday
2. I moved to New York this past weekend.

Well, there you go :) I hope those two together justify the long gap.

I love spam

Received today...


From: Onomatopoeic O. Eggplant
Subject: Hlelo three!
Date: May 11, 2005 1:12:58 PM EDT
To: salt@mit.edu

Good day!




Tips And Secrets To Use In Your Everyday
Dog Training, That Can Cut Training Time By Up To 67%

It is really very simple.

If you're not using the right dog training techniques, you're probably wasting hundreds of hours per year. Not to mention missing out on some of the joys of owning a well trained dog. Imagine being able to take your dog to Starbuck's Coffee and place him in a "down-stay" while you go in and have a cup of java. And know that he'll still be there when you come back! You can easily reduce your training time by more than 60%, and still achieve maximum results. Here's a small sample of some time-saving secrets you'll learn for your everyday training:


(and so on)

I really want to see the scientific studies that show that their methods cut down training time by 67% :) I'm particularly interested in the statistical analyses and subject selection.

That little paper that's due during finals week...

... also known as thesis.
Professor Arvind actually said that my thesis is "in very good shape"!!! This makes me very happy. For the first time I am quite sure that I will actually graduate. Now I just need to find the time to make those changes he asked for - it seems like it's about one day of intensive work. I'm actually quite looking forward to working on it. But before I get to that, there's the 6.863 project - we're analyzing the morphology of Sanskrit nouns. It's quite fun so far, but it has a lot of nightmare potential. I'll keep you posted.

Sick...

Over the last week or so, I've been sick. This has resulted in
- incessant coughing over the last week or so
- a cancelled New York apartment hunting trip (more on that some other time)
- my lowest quiz score ever, on an absolute scale (less than 50/100, and it is actually a full std. dev. below average)
- me having to wear that red bandana-type thingy, don't know what it's called in English but it protects your ears against the wind - it's prevented my cold from turning into an ear infection, but boy, does it look silly.
- me walking around with greasy hair - yuck!
- Vishy having to deal with a very cranky me over his visit this weekend (sorry...)
- me freaking out an elderly couple with my tuberculosis-worthy cough while waiting in line to see an IMAX movie

I hope the list ends here, or very soon... I really want to be able to walk outside and go dancing again.