I Think I Am Different: A List Of What Makes It All...

Do you think your friends, your family, your acquiantances should be judged by their believing in, or not believing in the same set of principles you follow or the set of beliefs you have been holding through your life? I am not sure how you think or probably the society at large thinks. Actually this ignorance is a bliss to me. Because I think my beliefs are not biased by the world around me. Life in itself has taught me to think independently and cling to a set of beliefs which I find logical for my life.
As ironical the consequence might be, I now know that many of the things I believe are actually more like a social outcast! Nevertheless, this has never made me being judgmental about people on the grounds whether or not the person before me believes in my set of thoughts. I think as long as the person finds his beliefs to be logical to his life, reflective of his actions and not forcibly affecting to the society, things ought to be relaxed.
I am a very liberal person; but pretty confirm about what I think and believe in. I learn from experience and mould my thoughts. This makes my beliefs and principles pretty simple when I try to reflect them in my actions. Yet, time to time, I judge myself. I look back and see if my actions have been consequences of my beliefs. If yes, I carry it forward. If not, then I mould either my future actions or my set of beliefs.
But I know, each one of us are different. My set of beliefs will not hold for 'n' other persons around me. Probably, not even for my parents. Not for my boyfriend (if any) either. Not to talk of others. I don't therefore like, love or hate people based on this criteria, which answers the question in the first line of the blog.
Some of the examples (not necessarily good or acceptible to you may be) are:
1. I am an atheist. But I will not say, "there is no God". Because I don't have a proof for that. But if I say I don't believe in God, it is because certain intuitions have led me to believe this. And I find this theory reflective in my actions.
2. People say, bad times make us pray to God. If I have not done this ever, it is not because I have not faced any ill-shaped situation. Actually looking at my peers, I think I have more than many. But never looked up to pray: always believed in myself. And it worked!
3. I don't want my partner or spouse to think alike as me. Because I know it is difficult. Probably because my thinking is rare. Probably I am too radical. I think my partner should know to think logically and that should be reflective in his life.
4. I don't look back on the past and panic. I only learn from experiences. I think that has been my biggest mentor and influence in life.
5. I am straight-forward. I speak my mind. If I know my speaking might be a bad shape, I don't.
6. I don't try to put images when I meet people for the first time. I am 'Munmun'. Know me the way I am.
7. I don't recall my life as a set of ill happennings. Rather I always look through and see all the good things that have happenned to me. And so many times, I have seen that even the not-so-good events have been blissful in the course of time!
And the list can go on! I am sure you too have your list of such examples. This is natural! But I think the listing of this kind has helped me judge and rectify myself time to time...

About Human Computability...

Going back to childhood, and before landing into the "land of opportunities" I always had (or probably was an inherited) pre-conceived notion that, Indians are good at computability. While in history books we used to take pride in our Aryabhattas and Bhaskaracharyas, I never got a scope to explore the notion or cull it into a practically validated fact in reality till today.
Nevertheless, today morning came as a surprise: a proof of this deep-and-old seated notion that even if agreed Indians' computation capability is better, how is it so? How is the degree of that? Or is it something else? Well, I am not a racist or an overtly patriotic individual, but beleive me I was taken aback when I got a 'parametric' view of the difference in computability between the folks from the East and the West!
Somehow, in a class of mine where there are undergraduates too, a topic cropped up: how long did you learn arithmetic tables? Basically the professor was casually asking us, what is the highest number of whose table you had memorized in primary school. He said, "Probably 12, right?" Then someone(one undergraduate) interrupted, "No! more for me! I learnt till 15!" Then there was a big "wow"! I was sitting quiet and smiling to myself. Then I thought, okay, let me give them the shock of their lives. I said, "I learnt till25!"
And then the situation in the class: don't ask me what happenned!
Well, generally, they were telling me later, that even for 13*5 they would use a calculator! I don't know if this degree of technology dependency is good or bad, but I am sure, this is destroying the natural computability of humans. I will not talk of Asia and The West separately. Because I believe, computability is not intelligence: it can be acquired by any. And when they say, they carry a scientific calculator/PDA with them all the time which they specifically use for the four basic mathematical operations: add, subtract, multiply, divide, I can only arrive at two conclusions.
One, this is a direct affect of too much technology dependence which is interfering with people's computational growth. Or the second, am I too out-dated, old-fashioned, obsolete looking at today's undergraduates, despite the fact that I myself was an undergraduate only 2 years ago? The answer is a question to me!

Every Tear Of Mine...

This might sound ironic, but it is true, that tears are the biggest assets of life! They are your strengths when the world turns back to you with a blind eye; they are the sources of placation when the wound in your heart is too deep to be healed ever. I know, my tears are going to stay with me whatever would happen in my life!
I find my tears the sole source of sustenance when I would need my emotions to ventilate, when it becomes rather very difficult to address the unsaid, deliver the unknown and understand the unheard. And probably that is why every tear of mine is very precious to me: though selfish it is to get captivated in the labyrinths of one's own problems, yet, tears are a bliss for which I would be grateful to the Almighty, if He is there. Tears make me heal my woulds, tears vent my feelings, tears show me the way to proceed in life as it comes.
I am not being pessimist, but just wondering how difficult it would be, unless our eyes were wet or our cheeks red. My tears bear all the secrets of my life, my tears though lost, would revert back to me everytime would I be alone in life. If you are upset, you know, you have your tears to stoop by you all the time; should you be lost in the wandering roads of life, you know, for every mistake you do in life, you have at least one tear to take you back to the 'origin' point of life from where you can always dream to return. And when you know, your belief in something has itself belied on you in the course of time, you still know that your tear is never going to belie on you ever!
I know we always talk of tears when we are through the rough times of life: when we see our tear as the lone silent spectator of feeling of loss, isolation or confusion. We cry inside, hide from the world to put a cover to the 'black' in our life. Yet, is not this a wonderful yet astounding yet mystic facet of everyone of us?
This reminds me of the poem by Heather Loughton called 'Silent Tears'.

A thunderous silence
breaks through my thoughts.
What was once many great ideas
is now a triumph, lost.

Baffling words tumble through my mind.
Reflections of darkness hover.
A disturbing peacefulness beckons to me,
and inside myself, I take cover.

What would it be like to stay there forever?
To be lost in all my cares?
From the inside, looking out -
I cry silent tears.

The Perfect Or The Survivor of The Fittest?

They have left the mundane Earth in quest of 'nirvana'; they have embraced the humanity at large to benefit the greater interest of 'world peace'; they have clung to their aisle of their own principles to revolutionize their ideologies; and they have disregarded all forces to delcare themselves as the 'architects' of their own destiny. These are the genre of people whom we would label as 'mavericks': the people, who, they say, are the real heroes of the world till date. These are the folks who are counted in the category of 'The Perfect.'
Then we have the genre of folks like you and me: folks who are entangled in the pros and cons, nook and corner, the pettiest intricacies of a commonplace humane life. This genre is probably not perfect, or more commonly, never ever deems towards perfection. We are just so busy with our own little lives. We are born, live to our variegated responsibilties and reach a unheard funeral. And amidst such uneventful lives of ours, we succeed and we fail, we grow and we wither away, we rise and we fall. If not perfect, the only goal we strive for is the goal for a comfortable life. Should we be successful in doing so, we are probably what Darwin had coined eons ago: 'The Survivor of The Fittest.' Not that the Survivor concept is true for our biological evolution, it is equally true for the evolution of the mankind as a whole.
Now, ask you about the biggest irony on Earth? What is an ideal goal? The Perfect? Or The Survivor of The Fittest? Neither me nor you are sure of the right answer. Or, is there really a right answer to it?
Things look blurred and bleak. Nevertheless, what we can declare in black and blue is that The Perfect is probably hardly The Survivor of The Fittest! We are human beings and not Superman! What would sound more logical to a mundanely successful life is therefore, probably, The Survivor of The Fittest and not The Perfect! Somewhere in our lives, always, we reach a point where we have these two roads to pick from. And then we would advise ourselves to stick to our ideologies and strive towards being The Perfect. But is that something we would dictate for a decent living in our little realms? Probably not!
The reason is, experience teaches us to live not for our ideologies, but for a reason to live. And that reason to live makes The Survivor of The Fittest, the winner at the very end. Now what is this reason to live? A reason to live can be as petty and mundane as my pet cat which I want to take care of forever. Or it might be a very small accomplishment as in earning 100 bucks, but, all with the sweat of my brow, day in and day out. To someone the reason might be to live for their loved ones and their kith and kin. But however small it is, it accrues a great shape when we make it 'a reason to live': the secret of strength The Survivor of The Fittest.
I believe, the biggest surge of life has to be, not the quest of the key to perfection, but the quest for a reason to live. Because a reason is the dormant storehouse of inexhaustible energies which would never part our mighty soul. A reason to live is something which would guide us through the labirynths of thick and thin, would enable us come upfront with the reality and make us bold enough to tackle it. Therein lies The Survivor of The Fittest. And the one who would always find a new reason to live, should the earlier one disappear in thin air, is the one whom our Mother Nature would select for a blissful life for ever and ever...

WHY TO LOVE.......?

The blue sky preparing to look azure,
While the rain drop accruing the shape of a pearl,
The running water of the brook sounding all mellifluous,
Every nook and corner ready to echo the love in air!

Nature as though to sing the way heart sways,
And none in the world appearing to respond against,
Impressed is then the impression of a total conquer,
With one and all of Nature ready to become a martyr!
This is the feeling of being in love,
The feeling, which drives the world behind around,

Love is most beautiful a bliss,
Which turns a simple smile into a little kiss,
To brighten up one's own day,
And to let others imbue with all gay.

Love; but not to be the victor of the conquered,
But to see how pretty the world is,
That world which springs up at a mere passionate smile,
That world which dooms itself in darkness,
Should one carry a loveless face's fascimile.

A Tribute...

Many a times, since the time I think I have matured in the perception of everyday petty yet profound things, I have been continually amazed at the relationship we share with our parents. I believe it is one of the most unique relationships a person ever cherishes in life.

We do not realize the meaning of being a daughter or a son till a certain age or maturity level arrives unto us. Sometimes we do not at all. The difference, talking in the Indian culture, custom and tradition context, being a parent not only imparts a sea of responsibilities, but also deals with it an automatic evolution of maturity which is just enough and a lot for the grooming up of a human being of tomorrow.
People round the world spend day in and day out in search of some God, some spiritual power. The reason: God is the ultimate self. God is the one who is omni-potent and He is the one who virtually controls, rules and takes care of the world. For example, in the Hindu epics, there is a notion of Lord Vishnu, who is said to be the 'Palak' or one who rears the Universe. Now, I am not talking of looking for a God or God-like personality around us. I am astounded as to how people cannot see the God in their parents! Talking of being a 'Palak", yeah, they are the one who groom up a little kid since its birth into a complete human being of tomorrow!
Again, people in the mundane world get upset over their best friends betraying them or some of their friends not looking up to them the way they expected. No wonder, I have also faced the same set of circumstances. But I have always found my parents beside me through all thick and thin. I now know, parents are the best friends.
After all this revelation even after knowing how much they have done for us, how many sacrifices they have done smilingly and how much we owe to them, are we as their kids, really able to live up to fulfilling all their expectations or at least ensuring them a beautiful later life? Perhaps yes sometimes, perhaps not always. We get so busy with our lives that we forget about some of our responsibilities we owe to the people who have been most responsible for us throughout their lives.
The Indian kind of relationship we cherish between parents and kids is astonishing. I think it is one of the unique of its kind in the world. I do not think any relationship ever had more colors than the rainbow, more threads intertwined than the finest cloth or more meanings associated than the world's largest thesaurus! It is such a commonplace feature, but every sunrise and sunset I feel I am amazed more than I was yesterday! If you ask me what my greatest wish and tribute would be, I would always say, "to be as strong as they have been, to be as responsible as they are, to have the degree of tenacity, to cherish in myself the whole horizon of forgiveness that parents shower on us on our biggest misgivings!"

What We Mean By 'Religion'?

Many people would swear in the names of their most treasured possessions about 'it'; some will fight the world for the sake of 'it'; others will embrace departure from so called mundane world to follow 'it': yeah, you guessed it right, I am talking about 'religion'. Religion, has perhaps been the most temporally persistent enigma of human civilization since the past five thousand years.
It is a strange coincidence that all the societal rules and customs made few thousand years back had very sensible causes behind their inception. Probably, religion, defined as a set of rules, customs and beliefs that a segment of a populace follows, arose from a way to make people still continue believing in themselves and in the things around them, when education, especially science was not a way to explain each and every happenning round the globe.
But this is unfortunate that the good motive to define and reach a set of rules as a religion for the better interest of mankind, did not last long. As the human civilization grew, so did grow man's greed for status and power. The scene remains true even today when while one set of people tries to exploit others in the name of religion, the other set knowingly or unknowingly prefers to get exploited or love to dwell in some fool's paradise.
I disbelieve in this concept of religion or perception of a set of defined rules which are set by some human-identified 'God' or a set of stone idols. To me, religion sticks to a set of defined rules, but those rules are the ones which are dictated by the 'self'. The sole philosophy of all the religions of thw world is how to find the true 'self' in oneself. And leaving aside the accessory rules and customs of those religions, I completely agree with them. And I believe the road to discovering the true self in ourselves is to know our set fo defined rules in life. And that 'constitutes' his or her individual 'religion'.
With a cohesive society disintegrating towards being more individualistic, and where we say "... room for ourselves" and "... live and let live", the notion of 'personified religion' sounds to me the best option towards a more 'logical' living and as an insight to the greater meaning of our lives.

I Await...

I stand by the ocean and watch the waves come and the waves go,
I hunt for the blue wave I witnessed in the night's first snow.
The wave that stole every moment of dusk and dawn,
As its memories beam high and low in my eyes' green lawn.

Every droplet is a ray of hope,
Hope to bring back the colors in my life on the blink of a piano note.
A journey, though meandering, it was,
it got me incredible mirth in the maze of life's wildest Jazz.

So was it much beyond just another passing wave over the passing yardstick of time,
But it construed the lemon in my daily lime.
I await 'midst the sand and the water's dice,
A hope, not to find a blue wave alike,
But I wait to put together and get back the wave of mine,
Which brought for me a whole new world of sunshine.

Live And Let Live...

This post is basically a repercussion produced as a result of reading this post from Ramblings

Basically a lot of hue and cry have been going on about banning the social networking site Orkut because of allegations like there 'exists' some community or the other which 'hurts' the sentiments of people due to some 'anti' behavior. And this is not the first time, but we all know that even Blogger was banned in India for sometime due to some insensible allegations.
The grave issue is not whether the petitions are sensible or not. Nor am I encouraing the spread of anti-shivaji or anti-india or anti-hindu or anti-sikh or anti-communist behavior. But I think in all of the successful democracies, a key authority that the people have is their freedom of speecha nd expression, irrespective of whether it is India or US. A person does have the right to express what his or her points of view are, even if they are not amiable to certain group of people. And we should respect one's freedom of expression.
History bears the proof how politics and self-interests have debarred the advent of computers initially and then Internet in certains states in India: the 'dumb' reason being cited as, computer automation would cut down the need for employed people and thereby create unemployment (although now time and the sensex bears the proof of the contribution of IT to India's GDP). And secondly Internet was strongly discouraged because it was labelled as a source of depiction of derogatory elements like nudity and pornography. And lastly, social networking sites like Orkut.
There can be two reasons behind such a parochial outlook on the part of these people who have submitted petitions. One, they are really parochial. Two, the political benefits. Althought he latter seems more likely, yet I do not find any good reason why they cannot look at the brighter side of the coin!
Needless to say, Social Networking is the answer to tomorrow's questions be it commerce, employment (Linked In), dating (Friendster), generic public interests like photography (Flickr, Blogger) or even more generic maintenance of social ties between people (Orkut, Myspace, Facebook). I agree everything is not so red and rosy: courtesy, hike in spamming techniques (Gazzag). But yeah, no doubt, the notion of social networking on the virtual world is bound to take newer strides in different walks of our life.
Let us look at the brighter side of the coin. I personally agree that Orkut has worked wonders for me: I could find so many long lost friends whom I was probably never destined to meet otherwise, as well as could make new. And I know so many other people who would agree with me.
I have seen Orkut 'grow' in the Indian intellectual class, since early 2003. I know how much Orkut has delved into being a part of the lives of many today (including me). Is it justified to punish 95 people for the sake of 5 bad elements?
The answer is of course NO. These 5 elements exist in our real physical world too! Are they conflicting and/or hurting our thoughts and views? May be or may not be. We are not really concerned. We just need our little space to live: live and let live is what we believe in. So why cannot we do the same for those 5 bad elements on Orkut?

Analysis 2006... Wishes 2007...

Although it is not yet about time to analyze 2006's accomplishments, draw in the 'not-achieved's, swear in the new goals or pragmatically single out the wishlists, still I think I know what to analyze and they are pretty simple and straight-forward this time.
This is has not been too bad; probably better than 2005. The reason being, I believe I have made some of the good decisions in 2006 which I think can cull into being 'better' in the long run. Also was I finally able to do/accomplish some of the nicest things I always wanted in life. And what tops the list is the 3 month stay in New Jersey, at stone's throw from New York City: the city I always wanted to be in! And this great experience is all attributed to the summer internship: an experience which both academically and professionally has boosted my confidence by leaps and bounds. Today, given a task, I know it is anyhow 'do-able' however difficult it might be! And yeah the joy in my research. I think it is one of the best things that has happenned in my life! I think I am close to the saying 'research is life...'. Now fingers crossed about some of the most interesting experimental results that I am awaiting in early 2007 from my current research endeavors.
Also although not a very calculated step, but I think my joining the AME lab has been another good happenning for me. I think it perfectly fits in with my philosophy towards research: the inter-twining with the practicalities of life.
Going to core academics, yeah you consider grade-wise, this year has not been anything extra-ordinary.I am still away from clinching a 4.0 GPA. But I am not really worried about that. But may be one of the good things I would like to happen to me in 2007 is probably a 4.0 soon.
And the India trip coming up. Really excited to meet parents after such a long time. And then my very own India: the food, the land, the placidness reigning everywhere. And then my home, sweet home back in Agartala! Too excited to wait till December 25th!
And other than cooking and writing, I think I have discovered two more hobbies for myself this year: a constant source of pleasure, captivity, placation, comfort and satisfaction. And they are photography and reading. I find tremendous boost in my daily life activities with indulgence in some active hobby always. Hope I continue with them for a long time, after this experimental phase.
And lastly but not the least, my wish lists for 2007. Wait, till my more relaxed 'happy-go-shopping' mood post for that! But I can say precisely, they are also pretty straight-forward: a car and a DSLR.
Neither of them is a necessity. But yeah I need both probably. A car makes life easier, and probably open the door for me to explore another hobby: travelling. I have enjoyed travelling in summer and so I am positive about that!
And then the DSLR. Although I am a bit confused if it should be a DSLR or one of the very good non-SLR-point-and-shoot ones like Canon S2 IS. But I would definitely like to explore the options of a Canon Rebel XT or a Nikon D50 or D70. And sufficed with a decent raneg lens like 18-70 mm...
Wish, wish, wish...!!! Lets see what 2007 has in store for me!!

Find Which Celebrity You Look Like!!... Cool Stuff!!

http://www.myheritage.com

Well this is what they (www.myheritage.com) guys' Face Recognition System judges that I look like!! I am pretty amazed!! Try it out yourself!! Fun stuff. But really like this kind of applications of pattern recognition aspects on the open web. Research unfolding newer realms!!

An Excerpt From My Live Diary

Probably the most complicated of all the things whether a boon or a curse on this Earth are relationships; of any nature, parents, children, friends, partners or spouses! One can slip being too bad or even too good at them. And I am one of all those persons who has seen the latter thing happen more often in my life than the former.
Yeah, I mean all the times when you tend to be really good, caring and sweet at somebody and the person on the other end of the table would not interpret it that way. And then one fine day, you would come to know that the other person was simply conforming to the care and goodness just as a part of giving a vent to your goodness and not really appreciating it. Even if you have the slightest emotional attachment to that person, you are bound to feel as doomed as it can be knowing about this.
I am not being pessimist after these dooming experiences. Because I am know I am happy yet pensive since I have lived up to the expectations of a relationship as I think it to be. Nor am I the kinds who would get to the bar tomorrow and get drunk and 'bitch' about those relationhips. But yeah, I think my age-old notion that guys are a genre I do not like, is probably strengthened after this. The next time I get drunk I will probably be more critical about the masculine folk: if not I get too feminist!
The proper ventilation to this: 'abstract' photography! Yeah, I think I can ventilate all my thoughts through one or the other mundane object around me. And yeah writing. These two are the two blocks which have never belied me since years; writing more, since photography is more new.
Needless to say, this blog, unlike the generic, thoughtful and issue-centric ones which I generally cater to, is more like a personal note from an excerpt from my live diary.

A Temporal Transition

One of the most cherishing and coveted experiences I always wanted to have after coming to US was the Football here. Well yeah, I am talking of 'american' football, which is supposedly the 'heart throb' of both young and the old here: much like cricket in India. So finally grabbed this opportunity to go and watch the ASU vs UCLA game yesterday evening at the Sun Devil Stadium. It was a totally instantaneous decision by me and another friend and we were very much excited! What was just putting us away from the 'football fever' here in the weekends all through the Fall was that we are going to be singled out in the match crowd because we did not wear the Maroon-Gold Tee (read, supporters of ASU). But that was not good enough a reason to subside our sudden decision to go. The evening when I was skeptical to spend even $10 for a drink or dinner, the thought of going to the watch the game threw all the economizing strategies to thin air! I was ready to spare $15 for a first time real football experience!
Leave aside what the result of the game was. It was very vivid to me that ASU will lose to UCLA since it has been really a bad season for us this time. But the only pushing factor that kept me captivated all the time was the experience.
The first thing, it was my first 'stadium' experience of any match. Even though being a huge cricket fan back home in the nineties, never came in lines with an opportunity to watch a cricket match in any stadium. So this footbal thing, though not my 'yet' favorite cricket, was going to be interesting for me! The second thing was of course, getting the 'feel' of the Football in US!
So many times had I heard about the profuse popularity of Football, but I only got to gauge it qualitatively and quantitatively watching the game in the stadium. The most interesting thing is, even if your team is playing badly, you can pass your time watching at the people, rather the attires of them! And I am serious. How weirdly people would dress up to show their support to a team! It was amazing! And then the entertainment that comes in between the quarters and at the half time. Impressive stuff: you can always have something exciting beyond the game! The feel of the 'fever' was great indeed!
Coming back and jotting down my feelings here, I am kind of feeling nostalgic now. I feel like going back to those times when a cricket match playing India as one team used to be one of the nerve-recurring actions and events for one and all of us; those times when we would put cricket on top of probably everything else! And then the joy when Sachin would score a century! A feeling as though of 'self' accomplishment!
I was actually surprised that I literally went back to those memories; more because after the match-fixing thing, I was totally heart-broken and left watching matches for good. But I think this time, trying to enkindle the passion for Football as an ASUrite, I managed enkidling my old passion for cricket to a great extent. I would now agree, "Old habits die hard!" A frivolous event has struck a 'temporal transition' in me...

Cultural Mismatch

I do not know why, but it is so true I miss my days back in India. They were not the best of the academic days or may be that was not the best place for the best career or the best opportunities, but there was a 'life'. I have a laptop, an apartment and a lab now, nothing else...
It has been 14-15 months in US. Initially I used to feel very bored whenever I did not have any work to do in the weekends. I then thought that may be this because it is a whole new place, new people, new culture and new lifestyle here; may be it is because I did not have enough friends till then to hang around with. But surprisingly enough, I undergo the same mental block even today after so long, whenever I am free and do not have many deadlines to meet.
This eventually goaded me to discuss the same issue with some of my close friends. And it seems, they too think alike!
I concluded that there is a basic difference in the perspectives of 'enjoying' or spending good 'life' in the two cultures. Life in India bore a different color and wore a new hue everyday, every hour. There was a very closely knit social clique of very good, good and okay friends. And whether or not all of them thought alike, there was a common goal: the affinity for fun together. And fun was hanging out, eating out, riding bikes, going to long rides, sharing the same aaloo chat roadside, visits to the beach, long walks, bunking classes for movies, late night TV browsing, night long talks, 24X7 yahoo messenger and what not! The list can go on...
'Fun' in America is very different and has only a few dimensions. When people here would say they enjoyed the weekend, they mean they party'ed last night. Yeah, parties with drinking, smoking, girls and may be doping. I do not say drinking, smoking, girls or doping are bad. It is foolish to be so judgmental and I believe it is a personal choice and I do not have any problems in any. But it is both astounding and sad at the same time that fun has so less of meaning in America. And when you talk of friends, mostly you will end up with people aired with an artificiality.
I know I will not ever have the kinds of friends I had in India. I know I cannot ask out a friend for a pani poori session by the roadside some Saturday evening. I know I cannot go crazy and start off on a bike ride at 3 am in the morning. I know I cannot spend the whole night near the dam with friends waiting to see the sunrise. But this is what I sought for...
I know I can ask out a labmate for a drink together. I know I can call in all my acquiantances some Friday night and party together with Corona bottles. I know I can go shopping with my female friends a Sunday afternoon. But this is 'not' what I sought for...

The Much Cliched Debate: Man vs Machines Revisited From a Different Perspective

It has been an innate desire of the human race since the very inception of its civilization, down the times of Adam and Eve, to explore the Nature and tame the surroundings to suit their needs. While human civilization coming down through the apt hands of Galileo, Kepler and Newton in the medieval ages had struck to explore and in a way revere how the Universe is, Einstein, Maxwell and today Stephen Hawking entended the realms of exploration and have bound the human race to think beyond all boundaries of time and space and that it indeed is the most intelligent and superior entity on Earth.
But consider the scenario of today. Flip through the pages of the science and technology sections of any leading magazine or newspaper. It is no longer the news of the 'awe' about the Nature, Earth or the Universe. Rather it is all geared around our achievements how we have taken over all these three: be it taming them to our needs or an attempt to beat the very way the Universe is created or even falsify the notion of 'three' dimensions with 'seventeen' dimensions or even think of time to be cyclic and periodic instead of the long believed belief that time is uni-directional and linear. We, the humans have emerged to be the most powerful entity in the Universe known.
In spite of all climbing to the zenith of success in all these areas of basic sciences, the man of today is not placated with what he has. He wants more control over everything around him. He seeks everything in his environment to be automated and adaptive to his own personal needs. And the most powerful tool that has given man all these options to think about is 'technology'.
Today we are living in a world booming with all the hi-fi electronic gadgets and applications that tend to make our lives easier, smoother and our tasks more adaptive to ourselves: the much hyped concept of personalization. And herein the human race is faced with a whole new challenge!
We are surging ahead on our way to make everything adaptive to what we mean, need or want without any requirement to specify it explicitly. In a sense, the machines of tomorrow will be intelligent enough to automatically get our stuff done in our own way. The question arises: to what extent?
There has been a lot of debate and fiction element on machines taking over man. I am not talking on those lines, but I am definitely suspicious of the hyper-execution of adaptiveness of machines. The only reason man has reigned five thousand years on Earth is because he had his own 'control' over what he wanted to do and he could accomplish that sooner or later. But with these adaptive and intelligent machines storming inside our lives today and tomorrow, it is not far away when man will have little control on what he wants to do, because the machines will be so intelligent and adaptive that they will start taking decisions on our behalf which we might have little control upon to strike a change.
I am not kidding! This is a grave-serious issue. Even though I am one of those folks who is contributing to making those systems more intelligent and adaptive, but honestly I do not want to get counted in tomorrow to be one without enough farsight about machines taking over man.
All the HCI (human computer interaction) research is overwhelming beyond words. But we always need to take care of the subtle thing that we leave enough traces or loopholes in building our systems which can bear the proof and carry ahead the legacy of our being the most superior entity on Earth in the years to come.

Want to be the next Mr India??

Could not resist blogging this new catching research on 'Invisibility' in this article. I am not talking about radars and aircrafts and rockets getting invisible for the enemy, but though hilarious, the 'Mr India' thing does not seem to be too far :D !! Have fun reading the article about how the electromagnetics has realized this fascinating longing of human beings persistent since centuries together...

The Small World Phenomenon: Privacy Issues

While we are always jumping at the very concept of the Small World Phenomenon, apart from all the other rumors and news that have been around, the issue of Aleksey Vayner is really going to surpass the heights of what can happen: thanks to the Small World Phenomenon!

As you would see in this article, the guy made his 'video' resume as a investment banking job applicant which eventually caught so much attention due to his athletic struts in it, that it made its way through all the popular email servers and social networking services like YouTube and MySpace.
The 'food for thought' is not the analysis of the cause and effect of these incidents. It is more grave and profound: an insight into how the very notion of the Small World Phenomenon has changed our perceptions, ethics, expectations and the way we interact with people in our social lives. In my view, if it has enabled us to better revive and sustain our geographically distant kith and kin, know people with similar interests, goals and profession, it has come to conflict people's notion of privacy too as we have seen in this case with Aleksey Vayner.
Privacy is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with in the design of all social networking frameworks. This is all the more difficult and different from the usual privacy maintenance because it deals with humans; people seek all different levels and notions of security. And managing privacy on a public domain with people from different socio-cultura backgrounds and age groups make it all the more a challenge! As I would like to present an excerpt,
"The private versus public boundaries of social media spaces are unclear. On the Internet, the illusion of privacy creates boundary problems. “New users and those engaged exclusively in recreational domains probably feel this illusion most strongly.” For example, in a television interview about Facebook, one of my students stated that she was concerned about revealing personal information online. When the reporter asked to see her Facebook page, the page contained her home address, phone numbers, and pictures of her young son. Without being aware of the dangers of online social sites, she had revealed too much personal information."

Similarly, Viégas’ (2005) research on bloggers suggests “there is a disconnect between the way users say they feel about the privacy settings of their blogs and how they react once they experience unanticipated consequences form a breach of privacy.” Lenhart (2005) reports that 81 percent of parents and 79 percent of online teens report “that teens are not careful enough about giving out their personal information online.” Moreover, parents of younger teens are more apt to be concerned about the disclosure of personal data.

Social networking tools, have almost become indispensable for teenagers, who often think their lives are private as long as their parents are not reading their journals. Teen use of social networking sites has increased to an average of one hour 22 minutes per day. Social networking sites are “already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real–world interactions.” For example, “when students began posting pictures of themselves at parties holding a beer and leaving messages that were hurtful, defamatory or demeaning, schools began considering ways to regulate the speech on [MySpace].” Adults tend to use the Web as a supplement to real–world activities while teenagers tend to ignore the difference between life online and off–line."

The privacy issue needs more attention as we move ahead on our research towards research excellence in social networks.

Netflix: $1 million award!

"Netflix, the popular online movie rental service, is planning to award $1 million to the first person who can improve the accuracy of movie recommendations based on personal preferences. To win the prize, which is to be announced today, a contestant will have to devise a system that is more accurate than the company’s current recommendation system by at least 10 percent. And to improve the quality of research, Netflix is making available to the public 100 million of its customers’ movie ratings, a database the company says is the largest of its kind ever released."
It was a huge wave today among some of the students in my lab; because of this article coming up in the Times today! Phew, folks giving a try to earn some $1 million in one shot with a recommendation algorithm that can override the existing Netflix one performance-wise (10%)! Reading the following paragraph in the news, it seems that it is the new strategy of the industry/certain defence organizations to put the toughest research issue in a competition awarding decent money! Other than Netflix, there has been other attempts by others too like,
"Cash prizes in other difficult technical areas have been offered in recent years. In 2004, there was the $10 million Ansari X Prize for a reusable spacecraft. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is again running a contest involving robotic vehicles with the first prize $2 million. And NASA is offering prize money ranging from $200,000 to more than $5 million for building equipment including lunar excavators and solar sails — large mirror-based equipment intended to collect solar power and conserve rocket fuel."
So keep your fingers crossed guys, it is possible that my lab will be the most amply funded lab in the world sometime soon...
Anyways, this idea can be critiqued as well being a stingy/improvident investment too, apart from the fact that it can yield to a fast solution to an exisitng research problem!

The Issue of 'India Shining': A Critical Insight

This post is the extended version of the discussion started in 'Can TCS/Wipro/Infosys Make It?'. I have tried to address some of the points raised here in the comment by dead man walkin.

The first issue is of the huge investments being made in India by software giants like IBM. However, a matter of concern to look at is what all are the domains that the investments are being made? How much of that investment is going to development of some kind of indegenously analyzed/designed product? If that investment is being made with the mere goal to employ a big Indian workforce in some service-oriented regime, it is not really anything which we can be proud of in the long run. How much liberty will the India on-site employees of IBM themselves have in development of a new product which is at par with some of the stuff being done by IBM Research in US? As a matter of fact, IBM in India is 'IBM Global Services' and not 'IBM Research' (the one for which IBM is 'IBM' today!). I am pretty skeptical about the goal of those investments!
The next issue is of the mushroom growth of MNCs in India. Agreed, this is drawing in 'dollars' for us and creating a lot of employment. But the prime motive of these MNCs crowding the south Asian countries is basically because the latter have cheap labor compared to the scene here.
Talking about value-ended R&D, yeah, companies are spawning off new departments, but the scene is still in the ice-age. If we talk about statistics and number crunching of GDP growth and all, I would like to know how many patents are filed from India every year? How many publications are made to the top conferences every year? These are areas we need to give more thought to. Good examples, US, Germany, Japan.
To sum up, the issue is not of 'India Shining'. Nor is it an issue of facts, figures and statistics. Although I am not a huge proponent of 'India Shining', I am not a rebel either. The point I had raised was the scope and extent of quality research work in India. It is unfortunate that it is very meagre still now. But it is true it is very important for a real value added technological prosperity: an issue of primary concern for 'India Shining'.
What motivated this thinking was a personal evaluation though. I am not a prodigy, but I think after an year of coming to US, things have made a lot of difference to me, for the better. I am very different from what I was an year back: I think critically, I am much more sound on my way towards an interesting next generation research. So the question arises, what actually brought in the change? And I think the obvious answer is, the scope, the opportunities and the work environment. These things need to be brought in India too. Needless to say, there is a lot of potential in all of us; a lot of potential in all of who are working in TCS/Wipro/Infosys. We need not be stuck with some work dictated and defined by others outside the nation which just increases our forex reserve. Rather we need to venture into novel endeavors and attempt to address open ended issues which can culminate into a next generation research that can, in turn, change colors of tomorrow's world. We need to cherish an instinct like that in all. And we are capable in doing that, we know. I strongly believe, only then, 'India Shining' accrues a profound meaning for the nation than just mere numbers!

A Simulated Universe

In the last-to-last research group meeting we had, I had raised a proposal that besides research, we discuss other topics of interest just as food-for-thought. Some of them sponteneously stumbled upon the argument shooting questions at me "What are we going to discuss? Physics?" (Physics since last semester I had a brief presentation on quantum gravity in one of the casual meetings and when folks asked me why such a topic which is so much poles apart from my research area, I blurted out that I am a big fan of physics, especially astrophysics!). Anyway, our advisor totally acknowledged my proposal to discuss stuff like physics and just casually mentioned one of the books he is currently reading "Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos".
Today I was just recalling that and thought would look for the book or some recent interesting work going on about the computational aspects of astrophysics. Coincidentally, I just came upon this interesting article. Basically the article discusses the recent research which has been done to build a duplicate universe as a computer simulation. Although I would strongly suggest you to go through the article, but some of the things I found too captivating not to discuss in the blog! For example, they say that 70% of the universe comprises something unknown called 'dark energy' which acts like kind of an anti-gravity pulling apart the universe elements like galaxies from each other. The designers of the artificial universe are also very excited about the flexibility that in the simulation they can go back in time or fast-forward time to see the various unsolved questions about the role of black holes and quasars in defining the fate of the universe. The article says,
"The Millennium Simulation - the biggest exercise of its kind - required 25 million megabytes of memory. But it tracked the 14bn-year history of creation in months and now offers a tool to explore mysterious events in galaxies far away and long ago."
This humongous nature of the simulation project is not only a big achievement in the realm of computational physics, but also an amazing and spectacular consideration for computer scientists! Being one of the latter and with a tremendous interest in the former, it would be an exciting pursuit to keep track of this simulation of the universe: how this actually works out to solve the astro-mystries and conjure up another "A Brief History of Time" all over again! Probably it can then address the much talked of fiction element: whether time is a continuous straight line or a continuous circle, looping over and over...