tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297838562024-03-08T13:44:22.969-07:00Ventilations Or Revelations?Life is a crossword puzzle; conjured up here, some scribblings of my voyage through this uncertaintyMunmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.comBlogger202125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-46010688604348908132010-03-26T00:17:00.003-07:002010-03-26T00:32:03.316-07:00A Research ConversationNot blogging enough; but here's a cool different way I just thought about my research while chatting with a friend over Google Talk. I am just pasting the interesting part!Me: The title of my presentation is: "How Birds of a Feather Flock Together on Online Social Spaces".Friend: So whats the conclusion?Me: Yes they do; but depends on the context.Friend: There is a but there; things are not Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-42089102697425751532010-02-19T21:32:00.000-07:002010-02-20T01:16:33.754-07:00Social Media + Credit Score? Please No!Since quite a while I had been wanting to write this particular blog post related to some of the news making rounds on the Internet, that, your activity on different social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter are used by the credit card companies to effect, in some way, your credit score. Though note that the company focusing on "computational advertising" on similar lines has denied such Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-90649778894385313482010-01-31T23:01:00.000-07:002010-02-01T00:07:46.110-07:00How "Birds of a Feather Flock Together" on Online Social SpacesThis post is among my first attempts to talk about my research and a specific problem of interest to a generic audience. Your comments are welcome!A primary domain of interest to social researchers through several decades has been the study of interpersonal communication among groups of individuals. Communication is central to the evolution of social systems. Hence the monotonic surge of interestMunmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-68020536765132738372009-11-14T05:41:00.005-07:002009-11-15T08:07:42.037-07:00Sip of a Very Beautiful DreamThe smell of the fresh chilling breeze, and the smoothing veil of the morning sunshine,The mystic mountains afar gleaming every moment like bricks numerous, and some blush wine,The wavering branches, the chirping birds, the rustling leaves: all making me soar on cloud nine,But deep down some corner; some memories riding fast the winding roads in thoughts of mine.The first pretty Winter blossom Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-3185118513534401042009-10-09T02:36:00.005-07:002009-10-09T03:04:49.432-07:00Barack and His Nobel, and What It Means To MeDespite good referrals from many friends and acquaintances, I never gathered enough time and opportunity to read one of the best-sellers in the non-fiction category in recent times; that is, Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Nevertheless, for reasons beyond just inquisitiveness in the last Presidential elections (read, I was using the election 2008 trends as a part of my research involving Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-19135688148430310562009-09-19T15:48:00.003-07:002009-09-19T16:18:33.816-07:00"...that one awesome thing that can change the world"My busy life since the past several months has almost taken away the fact that I used to have a blog to maintain. I still remember the times back in late 2007 and almost all of 2008 when this blog used to be a way to vent my primary line of thought - probably as a get away from the complexities of life, its thoughts, emotions and other associated processes :). Life has taken several interesting Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-52057278903800238122009-08-29T16:12:00.006-07:002009-08-29T16:25:23.029-07:00Fall Trips - Seattle & VancouverFor those who care, I was in Seattle for a couple of days, en route to Vancouver, Canada for SocialCom 2009. My talk's tomorrow - so fully geared! I leave Canada on Tuesday and the following day fly over to San Jose. I am going to attend the Key Scientific Challenge summit,, Yahoo! Research, wherein I have a poster presentation and a talk! Exciting week ahead!In the meanwhile, cherished the Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-90393168275661886032009-08-16T17:37:00.000-07:002009-08-16T22:41:31.961-07:00Backchannel Communication & HomophilyAs I am bored to death in the flight back to Tempe from New York City (happens to be a five and half hour long cross-country journey), I thought I might just use this opportunity to write. Today, sitting at JFK I was amused to read this blog post by Danah Boyd on how the sense of being "connected" at every moment is changing our ways of interaction in the real world. She talks about the Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-46274489057034461052009-08-04T20:31:00.003-07:002009-08-04T21:29:14.298-07:00Asymmetry...I remember writing a blog post sometime back on the phenomenon of symmetry that characterizes our social lives and actions. This was a time prior to when I started working on the "social synchrony" problem back in last December. It's interesting on how on the same note, I am interested in the phenomenon of asymmetry, so apparent in the social relationships we inculcate in our lives!CharacterizingMunmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-18691220628474238392009-08-03T21:24:00.004-07:002009-08-03T21:44:13.427-07:00The Canvass of Complex Relationships; Facebook, Twitter and More!One of the most amazing, but complex aspects of our lives is the fact that we invariably indulge in constantly evolving relationships with others. We mature, we develop new ones, sever some of the old ones, while move on from certain others. In other words, relationships mean to us a lot more than a binary outcome of "presence" or "absence". Sometimes some relationships to us just pause, they areMunmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-49627633796956823612009-06-27T23:33:00.005-07:002009-06-27T23:55:06.005-07:00A Time Travel, 10 years back...For reasons more than one, I have somehow been nostalgic about the times like 10 years back, the times in high school, the times of ripe teenage! Those were probably the most rosy times of life - just around the time when you begin to think of something called "life" and what it could mean to you, in the coming years. And I am sure most of us have very pretty pictures of life then!The point of Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-17645625253204624842009-06-25T19:24:00.004-07:002009-06-25T20:14:07.756-07:00Feedback Systems: Life and a Lot More!Since a little while, I have been catching up quite a bit on ideas from other related disciplines - like the areas which do not necessarily deal with generally networks, or specifically social networks. I won't consider myself a "pro-network researcher"; a distinction that I have begun to realize this summer. Nevertheless I wouldn't consider myself as one of those guys who does social networks toMunmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-27922117267341218152009-05-27T20:10:00.004-07:002009-05-27T20:32:31.024-07:00Life in RetrospectPeople often say - you can never unfold time in retrospect in the same way as it naturally unfolded then. Take the example of a PhD student's thesis. Good research (in the sense a good thesis which indeed makes a contribution to the relevant area) is never done in a day; neither is it ever dictated from a month or even an year's of single line of thought. Rather the process is more or less Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-67968310307549298912009-05-16T20:48:00.005-07:002009-05-16T21:05:16.208-07:00Thoughts in Some Wet WindI can smell the wet air and can feel the damp soil,I can ride oceans and seas to find the first summer foil;In a country with some unknown crowd and words of a less learned strain,I breathe in and dwell in a dreamland of body and some brain.Sometimes the blowing wind would shudder a tremble in me,As I hold a hot cup of coffee and attempt to look through my bunch of key;The key which locks out a Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-42384335427052314602009-05-02T17:21:00.002-07:002009-05-03T18:14:46.307-07:00Europe Trip: First Accounts...Much wanted for is a blog post, precisely a travelogue, which depicts my Europe trip. I must say, it was one of the trips I would never forget - whether it is from the career point of view, or just for my mere love of traveling. My trip was short, but very sweet, and the places that I traveled to were Madrid and Paris, both in western Europe. A per-day account follows from this point onwards. In Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-812902672754420562009-04-10T10:24:00.001-07:002009-04-11T01:13:12.113-07:00I am BackA lot of guilt, a host of news and a mountain of work are what I return to the blog with after around two months of complete silence. Though everything went on so fast and I hardly realized time has been ticking its way quicker than I could realize, yet I have always missed this favorite pastime of mine!Time has kept me unbelievably busy of late. Several things have been going on, the most Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-44584327192262052482009-02-22T00:12:00.005-07:002009-02-22T00:28:40.876-07:00About SlumdogMuch has been said, talked and written about the strong Oscar contender movie, Slumdog Millionaire, by Danny Boyle. One friend told me Danny has shown India in bad light. Someone else told me that the movie didn't impress him at all, he found it all a hype. And some other friend told me that the movie has been making so much media coverage and is a strong Academy award contender because Danny Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-31066870481092974642009-02-21T23:30:00.003-07:002009-02-21T23:59:57.288-07:00Sometimes Winning is Everything...The real research is one which springs from your real life observations of small things. And how those small things relate to a bigger philosophical endeavor. Research is neither for earning money, nor for being famous neither about merely being sincere at work. Unless there is a high level motivation to relate your work to the bigger picture of the society, please don't consider this line of Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-1701531766166417362009-02-15T23:14:00.001-07:002009-02-17T04:39:53.992-07:00Another Crazy Analogy!Long back, since my high school days, I always used to love fundamental science, and Physics in particular. Though I no longer do the basic sciences, working in an area like (online) social networks which is of widespread interest to people spanning over multiple disciplines, as economists, sociologists, physicists and of course computer scientists, I can see a lot many correlations with Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-91937435358969522392009-01-12T19:38:00.004-07:002009-01-12T19:56:16.867-07:00... he makes the impossible *possible*...""A.R. Rahman is nothing short of a melodic genius," Andrew Lloyd Webber has said. "I admire his unique sense of harmony, his staggering rhythms and his melodies that take an unexpected twist that no Western composer would dream of.""This is an excerpt from the popular political blog Huffington Post, in the context of Rahman getting the Golden Globe for composing the score in the movie Slumdog Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-80460797903471504972009-01-07T13:10:00.003-07:002009-01-08T13:38:33.032-07:00Munmun Goes 'Pro'!To start New Year 2009 with a bang, I went 'pro' on Flickr! All the thanks goes to AK, and also to Yahoo! :D A Canon 40D sometime late this year, with the standard 18-55 mm lens, a zoom lens (70-300 mm) and a wide-angle 10-12 mm lens; and then I am all set to go! Going 'pro' on Flickr was something I was looking forward to since a long time - came soon enough :) Please find the 'pro' Munmun here!Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-20197045965062285402008-12-26T04:48:00.007-07:002008-12-26T05:21:33.711-07:00My Christmas 2008The picture precisely summarizes my Christmas this year. I am moving, my current lease ends on the 31st, so I am packed and getting ready to leave for the new apartment. Excited and tired, happy and pissed, both; because the place is awesome as what it seems, but at the same time packing is a big pain!When I was a kid, Christmas eve and Christmas used to be the times of great fun and excitement -Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-47884413486481502742008-12-25T02:36:00.006-07:002008-12-25T03:29:13.689-07:00TaggedRecently I was tagged by Partha. Here are my replies to his questions. Some of them I liked, quite serious and profound!1. If marriage is optional, would you rather stay single and why?It's not about marriage being mandatory or optional, it's a choice of life we make. Of late, I like staying single. Helps me lead a much simplified, independent and hassle-free life.2. If you can have a dream to Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-88261807909503352092008-12-23T15:38:00.002-07:002008-12-23T16:08:39.350-07:00The "Third" Kind..."I always believed there are two types of men in this world: men who go to their death screaming, and men who go to their death in silence. But then I met the third kind..."This is a quote from the popular Bollywood movie, Rang De Basanti, summing up the vigor inside the revolutionaries of the then times before Independence. Somehow today I was lazing at home and got glued to some of the deleted Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29783856.post-43725021559970042952008-12-22T02:14:00.001-07:002008-12-23T02:51:13.147-07:00The Paradigm Shift of Today's AgeSeveral reasons over the past few months have led me to constantly go back now and then, to the popular concept called "Paradigm Shift" first coined by the renowned social scientist Thomas Kuhn in his famous work of the 1960s: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Ever since it has emerged into a very popular idea in the scientific, technological and marketing community, apart from the Munmunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12407492677821163630noreply@blogger.com0