Saturday, June 30, 2007

Live Free Or Die Hard

What a mighty mighty action! The 1.5 hrs of ultimate thrill with helicopter and plane crashes , freeways cracking and computer hacking. Bruce Willis still looks awesome in his one man army. Reminds me of Sunny Deol. Actually that would be a dishonor to Bruce Willis :)...The movie was too good and so was Bruce Willis. But the theatre was a big mess. Me, Waj and his parents went to Orpheum theatres on State Street for the first time. It was not even a theatre, just a screen, an old building , a pathetic audio and only 10 audience. Those were also interested in getting the money back after seeing the theatre. Well I am planning to see the movie again at a better theatre with cracking audio..The movie was mindblowing!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Multitasking in human brain- Are we better than computers?

Yesterday I was travelling in bus number 6 returning home from Walmart. As ususal my ipod was glued to my ears. I saw a kid probably around 10 years sitting on the opposite seat. He too had his ipod plugged and was simultaneosuly writing some stuff in English in his notebook. He was writing, erasing, writing again turning back and forth the pages and ofcourse listening to music simultaneously. That made me think that the Multitasking Era has been set into place at quite a young age now. We listen to music, even watch TV while working, do sms in between studying, i talk on the phone almost continuously as long as I cook. And sometimes i burn the food doing that! To make things easy for me I have installed my blue tooth so that I can work more "Efficiently" while I talk over the phone. So technology is really taking care of the new Maultasking brain. So the question is , is multitasking good for us? One thing ofcourse is that we dont burn Watts of power as the processors even if we do extensive multitasking. Our operating system (the brain) is more efficient than Windows to set the priorities among the different tasks we do simultaneosuly assigning them the needed resources. Yes this does happen, the brain assigns different resources like thinking, logic etc to different tasks as discovered by a UCLA group through MRI images. The neurologists also say that multitasking is less efficient than doing one job at a time, so if a kid reading a history chapter does text messaging in between thats not too good for his learning. And so for us too like browsing the net while working to check the bank account or pay the bills, messaging etc etc etc ..list goes on..Well i have a couple of times felt the heat of multitasking when i felt really exhausted after trying to complete too many things in the least possible time. Sometimes it makes me really wonder that the flexible 1.5 Kg brain we have packed inside our head so compactly is really good in assigning the priorities to tasks and executing them in the multitasking mode..Dont know what algorithm it runs though! The irony is that the society is being shaped in a way which demands humans to do multitasking, primarily the reason being the technology. So next time you multitask, dont forget to enjoy the job which you could have done one at a time and maybe also better!

Monday, June 25, 2007

First Summer Class

After the last one and a half month of no classes, it was an extraordinary effort to attend the first class of the lazy Madison summer this morning. And this class was 3 hrs since the course (Information Systems) is a short 3 week course so 3 hrs every day. Well I must say I was awake throughout the 3 hrs which is not like me at all. Its not because i was extremely excited about the course but just that its the last course I am taking at UW-Madison. The city of Madison and the University of Wisconsin Madison are the two things I adore beyond limits and will miss them when I am gone in a month. Madison has been the centre of my life for almost the past 2 years. I came as a MS student in the ECE Dept and like any other Indian student who came in the Dept that fall in 2005, i was searching for funding quite desperately. It reminds me of those days when we used to walk with resumes in our hands in the Chamberlin Hall (physics) And Van Vleck ( Mathematics) , the two favorite spots for finding funding. The roads of Madison were new and we used to get lost quite often. There used to be long walks on the beautiful roads of Madison to which i wasnt accustomed initially. However the whole experience of getting settled in the new unfamiliar but extremely warm and greeting city of Madison and the University was one of the most enriching experiences of my life so far. The last 2 years in this place have made me an independent individual from a college girl in India who had never stayed away from home even for a day. The thought of missing the vibrant student life at UW-Madison very soon kept me awake through 3 hrs of lecture!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Punjabi Masala Burger on Sunday Evening

This evening, after a nice long walk in the morning followed by an icecream at the Memorial Union and a movie in the afternoon at home, I was wondering what to do. I searched for any events in Madison on Sunday evening at google but in vain. I had just finished the extraordinary genius and captavating book 'Digital Fortress' by Dan Brown in the morning. After the past 5 days which were extremely interesting because of the book I was feeling bored and dull. So thought of cooking something I hadnt cooked before, that was the only thing that came to mind I hadnt tried for the past few weeks :). Seeing the few ingredients I had in my kitchen i thought of making a Masala Burger. It turned out fine for the first attempt and there is plenty of scope for improvement for the second one. So here is the recipe incase any enthusiast wants to try. I call it a Punjabi burger because it was cooked by a Punjabi chef ( thats me :) ). Here it goes:

Ingredients:
2 Potatoes
Coriander/Cilantro leaves
1 Onion
1 Tomato
Cucumber
Curd
Oil
Bread crumbs/ Rusk powder
Kishmish, cashews
Lemon
Spices- ( Salt, red chillie powder, garam masala, jeera powder, turmeric powder)
Tamarind (optional)
green peas
Buns

Procedure:
First Boil the potatoes either by wrapping them in plastic and using a microwave or in a pressure cooker using water. Next mash the potatoes as much as you can and add the bread crumbs or rusk powder ( as fine as possible), cashew, kishmish, coriander leaves,salt, chillie powder, garam masala, green peas and jeera powder to the mashed potatoes. Now mix this mixture properly. Taste and see if the spice level is good enough. It should be a little more than what you like as after being sandwitched in the bun the spice level of the tikki in between will be pacified. Once this mixture is ready, heat some oil in a pan for frying the tikkis. Grease your hands with oil and make round balls from the mashed potatoes and make the balls flat in the shape of the tikki (they should be as flat as possible for better frying). Fry them 2 or 3 at a time depending on the size of your pan. Once the surface on bottom is brown enough tilt the tikki upside down and fry the other side. In the mean time tikkis are frying you need to prepare the mixture for garnishing. Cut the tomatoes and oninons in medium sized slices and mix them together. Now add some curd to this to form a paste like mix and add coriander leaves , turmeric powder and some red chillie powder to this mix. Slice your lemon ad squeeze it generously in this paste and mix again. When you leave this paste aside for some time and then you smell it it will be a very delicious and nice smell because of the coriander and curd mixed together. Also slice cucumber in round slices. Once the tikkis are ready you could grease the inside of buns with butter if you dont mind some extra calories. Next place the tikki inside it and a slice of round cucumber. Now add the onion tomato paste generously on the top of the tikki and stuff the burger with the paste and then close the hamburger. Serve with tomato ketchup.

Optional: If you are a tamarind lover, you could prepare a tamarind mix by mixing tamarind in water and brown sugar and then heating for a while. This tamarind paste can be added to the onion tomato paste. ( I did not try this since I didnt have tamarind at home).

So that was the recipe I tried this evening and it took about an hour to make some delicious masala burgers.

Friday, June 8, 2007

First Blog

Well just became a member of Blogspot.com. Not any particular reason but just that I have quite some time now for a month which is a rare thing in a grad student's life. Finished with my spring semester at UW-Madison 3 weeks back and starting with the summer semester in another 3 weeks. That will be my last semester and unfortunately the end of my student life for now atleast ( dont know about future where i might be a student again :)) Had a nice time with my mom who visited me here for the last 3 weeks. Lots of food and desi ghee! Also went around Chicago and New York with her for a couple of days. She just left yesterday evening and I am finding myself with nothing to do for now. So it is the time to scratch my head and think of all the hobbies which I had or wanted to have but never had the time.