Here comes the sun

After yesterday's dreary drizzle, it was a joy to see the sun this morning. It looks like it's going to be another wonderful day in New Haven. I need to do something about my sleeping habits - I keep waking up late (10-11ish). Resolution: Am going to go to bed early tonight. But before that, I have much to do - need to do some research, work on a patent app, make an exam, fix some code..

Speaking of things to do - I'm pretty stoked for the Real-Barca match today. Let's see how it goes! Real won the Real-Barca game today 2-1; things got pretty exciting towards the end - Gareth Bale scored a wonderful goal around 85 to put the score at 2-1, and Neymar's shot rebounded off of the post at the 89th minute. Real (intelligently) wasted the 3 minutes of extra time to deal a 2-1 crusher. The score doesn't really reflect Real's dominance of the match (remember, this is a team that's missing its star player - Cristiano Ronaldo!). Barca's play was pretty lacklustre - it's been a pretty bad week for them: knocked out of the Champion's League by Atletico, reeling from a loss against minnows Granada in La Liga, and now this. Not a good time to be a Barca fan.

Update: Went out this evening with Andrew Sinclair to talk about the financial crisis. In addition to being a great friend, he's a doctoral student advised by Gary Gorton, and is currently studying precisely that topic. I think I have a good handle, and extensive notes, on the basics now (for a layman). Hopefully, I'll be able to turn those notes into a coherent document over the next couple of weeks.

Today's Things:

• South Korean ferry accident - hundreds missing, mostly schoolchildren [link, link]
• I know that saying "things are looking bad in Ukraine" is a bit of an understatement, but whoa! Russian separatists flew the Russian flag on armoured vehicles it had captured from the Ukrainian army's operations against it; pretty humiliating for Kiev [link].
      Furthermore, the manner in which said "capture" occurred is also pretty pathetic - "The Ukrainian troops appear to have been disarmed before being fed by pro-Russian militants at a cafe in Sloviansk and then put on a bus back to their home city of Dnipropetrovsk." [link]
• Lavabit: When asked to hand over their encryption keys, Lavabit obeyed - by printing the keys in tiny size 4 font (this is size 4 font) and sending the resulting 11 page document to the FBI, for which they are now being held in contempt of court [link].
• Another poison gas attack in Syria [link] - this happened a few days ago, but I learnt about it today.
• Iran reduces nuclear weapon capabilities [link]
• Turkey plans to create separate prisons for homosexuals [link]
• NYPD ends its muslim surveillance program [link]

(To be updated throughout the day)