Backchannel Communication & Homophily

As 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 perception of "backchannel communication" in public environments and how the acts of tweeting, blogging, wiki-ing makes a one-sided conversation more engaging. The article clearly can be controvertial, but as a person born in the early eighties and a person who actually saw the entire "Internet" buzz bloom since teen age, would certainly be able to connect with her thoughts!

As Danah says while she is in a lecture / talk, she would carry along her laptop and pick up the points which are not-so-clear from the presenter and / or gather more intensive information related to the topic, or even tweet about it to understand the opinions of her social network, I am at a point where I think I can justify similar acts I have indulged in, in the past.

Since I was in high school, I always hated taking notes in classes. My idea was that, if there are something I really didn't know, or I thought I should keep in mind, I ought to be able to remember it anyways. It was kind of arrogant / crude / bad information management you might say, but that's how things have been working out for me. However, once I came to grad school, I felt obliged to change my principle a little bit! I still wouldn't take notes, instead carry my laptop, and as with Danah, would look up / read relevant or useful information that was being dispensed in the course lectures. It worked out pretty okay.

Today, with no courses left to deal with (!), I often route my inquisitveness / doubts / questions / brain-storming ideas over one of these social media sites. Two of the most useful and successful backchannel modes of communication that I have come across with are the Facebook status updates, and IM (Google Talk) status updates. And fortunately, I have often received very immediate flurry of responses about those questions from my social network!

My point here is however, not to reinforce the culture of backchannel communication. Rather the point that sort of intrigues me is that the ways we consume information has radically changed over the years - from the high school taking-notes-lecture days to today's way of asking a question to your network via your Facebook status. There seems to be a lot of hue and cry about the propagation / diffusion of information in all these social networks, but the point I am trying to make here is that even our modes of consuming that diffused information has changed drastically.

Nevertheless, the more sort of research question that still remains unanswered is that why do some of these forms of backchannel communication create a chatter, while some just faze away? Of course, the simplest answer is that for certain topics there exists homophily between you and a significant segment of your network. However when I conducted a simple experiment to validate this by posting a very "research-specific" question as my Facebook status, I was surprised to see that many of the comments were actually not at all from people who seems to experts in the topic! Do what role does homophily play in promoting effective backchannel communication that Danah talks about? More fundamentally, does homophily (or the idea that your friends are "like" you) actually make sense in today's social-media-rich culture? I don't quite know the answer yet - but I am inclined to believing that multiple modes of interaction are likely to promote backchannel communication in different manner and possibly for different subsets of your social network. Some of which might actually not have any homophily with you at all!

Asymmetry...

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!

Characterizing relationships in online social networks is of my current research interest; and I plan to look at it from the manner individuals communicate over these different media. However as most of the literature in the social sciences goes, people have mostly considered undirected edges, that is, assuming relationships are symmetric. While this can be useful to simplify the network representation, or to compute elegant network features, I am driven by my simple life experiences; and the experiences that say that 99% of the time relationships are not symmetric!

Sometime back, I heard someone saying that in a non-platonic relationship, one person always has the upper hand than the other; and that one person has the upper hand to terminate it over the other, i.e. is in a more advantageous position than the other; and also that the implications of termination are likely to be worse to one compared to the other. I don't have a good reason to think otherwise. I think while this is most true about non-platonic relationships, there could be validating evidences in most other relationships, like parents-kids, brother-sister, employee-employer etc, however good friends you can mutually be!

In current state-of-the-art, unfortunately relationships in social networks, have been over-simplified, especially when it comes to characterizing them. I would imagine that though Alice and Bob both label each other as "friends" on Facebook, it is likely that the properties of that friendship are not symmetrical to each. Such asymmetry can for example, be explicitly found in their communication patterns or can be implicit in evidences like who is more likely to follow the other - revealing sort of a dependency relationship from Alice to Bob, which might not be the case from Bob to Alice. These are just some brain-storming thoughts of characterizing the asymmetry. There could be more...

Basically this thought springs from two causes, and both of which interestingly clicked to me today in the train back home: (a) that most of the times relationships have been quite asymmetric for me, the context being different every time, and (b) social ties have rather been poorly characterized so far - we need a more realistic model that captures the directional dynamics between a pair of people, specifically based on their communication and their actions in the social front.

However, finally while I do think modeling the asymmetry is useful, how is homophily, i.e. the fact that you and your friends are alike in some manner, related to this asymmetry? Maybe a future post!

The 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 are neither continued nor broken.

There has been a lot of hue and cry over the Web in the recent past over Twitter and Facebook. And how they are getting more and more intertwined with our lives today. And also how they could possibly take over our entire notion of social presence. And also sometimes how maintaining profile and activity on each of them can be monotonous, tedious and time-consuming. However, I think that these online social networks have a long way to go to actually reflect our social lives transparently. Or at least computational social science, as a research field, is yet to acknowledge several of the complex manner in which networks evolve in practice, and in particular characterizing the complex social relationships embedded in our daily lives.

Come to think about the point I raised earlier in this blog - that social relationships evolve thereby impacting the way networks as a whole evolve. Unfortunately, computational social science so far, looks at network evolution merely at the level of a binary variable - relationships emerge and relationships die. However, in my view, a much more comprehensive understanding of the relationships needs to be accounted for in these social networks / media like Facebook and Twitter. I am sure each one of us would agree that several of the relationships with people on our Facebook profiles have changed from the time we made them "friends". Unfortunately, there is no way to account for these changes on the social network itself.

A possible way to understand evolving relationships could be to look at the explicit mentions of changes - e.g. two people mentioning each other in the "In a Relationship" field on Facebook. Or sometimes even implicitly - e.g. communication patterns. But still, there could be several unforeseen instances which might account for the evolution of a relationship.

My hypothetical solution would be to consider the dynamics of communication and other user activities across different social media. As we all would agree, our presence on different social network serve different purposes, so does our social roles change across each of them. Hence a change likely to trigger the evolution of a relationship might get reflected on one social network, while might remain rather passive on the other. A comprehensive modeling of our multi-modal actions and multi-modal communication, I believe, can explain greatly the complexity of evolution of relationships in reality.

Hopefully this would be a segment of my research this year! Look forward to it. As always, driven by life experiences, and motivated by the plethora of bliss showered on us by the Web in particular, and Computer Science in general! Cheers to "computational social science" :)

A 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 this blog is not to say that life actually, in the current times, is horrible. Neither I am making it a point that I have seen enough of "life" to make such a statement. Rather I was just analyzing how the perception, priorities and meaning of life has changed to me, over the span of past 10 years! It's just amazing...

Back in the "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" days, I used to dwell in an extremely emotional world. If not love at first sight, I used to believe that one day I would meet that Mr. Right and fall in love and there would be no looking back! I used to think that there would be a cute house in a calm neighborhood, with lots of flowers and trees, and we would live there happily everafter. And I also used to think that I would be doing that ultimate best job in the world and have all the comfort and pleasure of the world.

June 28, 2009 is today - a day when I know that emotions are a heavy cost to pay in the end. It's today when I have known over so many years and so many incidents that things don't just fall in place; they need to be worked out. And there's nothing as live happily ever after, life has its sinosoidal nature. And having the best job is never served to you in a platter, you have to struggle, work hard and persevere for it.

Well I don't mean to say that life means something terrible to me now. Rather I would say I know quite a bit of life now. And the definitions of different things like emotions, love, job, career, happiness, success etc have radically changed - for the better! Success to me today is not a mere "good job" which can get me that cosy home in the countryside, but to do something meaningful in life. Something that can leave a mark in the world; something which would remain worthwhile for a long time to come. And I am ready to pay severe costs for that meaning that has evolved over me in these past few years. Because, even happiness means something totally different today! It means deeply caring for certain things in life, even if it means giving up several of the pleasures :)

One of my friends recently told me that I should be fit enough for a cross-country running. I told him, there are probably a lot of other things too which I should be fit enough to be doing today! However it's all about the choices we make in our lives. If I am not fit for certain things in life, it is because of certain other things that I care for - things in which I strive to succeed. And that's what conjures up my happiness, pleasure, emotions, career and life at large today...

Feedback 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 to leverage another complex problem, like information retrieval or classification or media summarization. My problems are very grounded; and I would like to keep it that way.

Anyhow, talking about where in the research chart I would put myself, needs an altogether separate blog post - something which I am not planning to accomplish today; at least that's not what I started out writing on! I am going to talk about an obscure connection - the connection of feedback systems to life, in specific instances, as well as in general.

As they say, to err is human (and I am intentionally leaving out the "divine" part of it, for reasons that you might already know from my previous posts!). And I have this entire blog post which I wrote on this pessimistic truth that abounds our lives. But I am going to talk of a very optimistic look-out to the entire thing today; and this connects itself to the ideas of feedback systems that I have been reading for a while.

Can you recall when was the last time you made a "mistake" in life? No, I am not talking about the mathematical, algorithmic or whatsoever mistakes - I am talking about the actions that we do - the times when you stop being a level-headed guy and do something which doesn't reflect your own self. The errors we make in our lives all the time; sometimes of choices, sometimes of people, sometimes of our goals or sometimes of our work, and the list can go on ...

What happens then? Maybe sometimes we feel terrible, we rebound. Or sometimes we just leave those mistakes there - let it be. Or sometimes we set out to make it a point not to repeat it again. Exactly like how a feedback system would work - it takes the output from an event, and refines the input to optimize some loss function - until the error is infinitesimally negligible or theoretically zero.

We all love perfection in our lives. That's why we set out to rectify those mistakes in the future; like a feedback system. And that's the spirit of life I believe! Because life is not about being perfect; but striving to be perfect, in exactly the same manner a simple feedback system would work!

Did you tune your feedback system yet? I am trying to tune mine :)

Life in Retrospect

People 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 recursive - we hypothesize, we test, we validate and then come back and re-examine our hypothesis again. The process continues until we are able to hit the so-called "scientific truth" - okay maybe for many of us, the "technological leap".

Thesis ideas don't bloom in a day - people rarely would have their ten chapters of the actual thesis figured out in the very first month of their grad school. However, when you look back at a good thesis after seven (or hopefully several) years, it gives you the feel, the girl or the guy dreamt of doing the exact same thing and expected the exact same results the day s/he was born. We know that's often not the case though (okay not talking of Turing Award winners here)!

Life looks different in retrospect. It lends us a spectacle which enables us analyze the past in the context of a number of variables that have come to emerge and affect our lives in the present. Hence when we look back, we feel that life in retrospect has happened the way because they were bound to happen that particular way! Some people would call it luck. But I woudl refrain from digressing into that - needs a separate post.

Retrospective thinking and the conclusions derived from them are often misleading, or are at least quite illusive. However it is of utmost necessity in life. When I look back at my life retrospectively, I feel happy. Because I feel I won't have been probably sitting her writing this blog about my weirdest philosophical thoughts unless things happened the way they actually happened. I feel, in retrospect, life molds us in a (sub)optimal way which can help us lead our lives in a manner which we, if we want, would be able to justify to ourselves, if not another ten people.

Since I was a kid, everyone used to tell me - look forward, think about tomorrow, don't brood over the past, etc etc. But sometimes the retrospect helps. It gives you the courage for today when you think of the hard times you have had tide over in the past. It tells you that wherever you are, it's your sequence of actions that has led to this, and hence you are the one who has responsibility of your own life - not some other random contextual factors which had just fallen in place in the past. Precisely, looking at life in retrospect makes us ready to tackle a tough tomorrow. Yeah several times, if not always.

When I look back at the person I was in 2007, exactly two years back, I feel strange sometimes. I feel strange at the manner (and also the fast pace) I have evolved as a person, learnt of life's greater responsibilities, started to take things as they come and to love the things I do, and do the things I like, as long as it's justifiable to the larger set of people you care about. If life had been hard then, it was like that for the today I have.

And the today I have is probably for something more meaningful tomorrow...

Thoughts in Some Wet Wind

I 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 future of some hope and some memory
Of past and of the let-go days' territory.

I stand as I feel the wet rainy wind blow my face,
I see, I hope, I expect, I disgress
To a future adorned with all the best of the gone-by times,
And a lot to do for those yet to come - but yet what rhymes
Is a promise - a pledge that life has bore all through,
As I enjoy and work my way as a ship's crew.
A journey as meandering it could be
Yet as many dreams as there could possibly be!

Europe 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 this blog I have accounted for my first three days in Madrid. The rest, along with the Paris blog would follow soon!

Apr 19: I started from my home early morning, helped by Uday to get dropped at the airport. I needed to get a domestic flight first, to Chicago, and then had a connection to Madrid on the Spanish airline Iberia. The one stress that I always had before I started my journey was my 100% ignorance of the language in either of the two countries. Apart from a "hi" and a "thank you", I had no clue about how I would express myself out there. Much before I started, friends recommended I learn a bit of Spanish and French, but my ever-busy schedule did not let me a single opportunity to do so. My Chicago flight was delayed, almost by an hour due to bad rains there. Though I was skeptical I am going to miss the connection to Madrid, which would mean staying a night in Chicago, things fell in place when the Iberia flight was delayed as well! I embarked on my journey, when I figured a significant number of the passengers were Spainiards.
The flight was long and boring. The food was mostly continental, and so were the drinks, ref. Heiniken (not one of my favorites). This wasn't the real feel of Spain yet!

Apr 20: I reached in the Barajas Intl Airport in the morning, about 11:30 am local time, which is nine hours ahead of Arizona time. I knew how to get to the hotel from there - went down the terminal, got some currency exchange and walked to the Metro station. I had to change at a certain station in the middle and then had to walk to the hotel which was hardly about 200 meters from the station. At this point what really helped me was Google Maps street view. I had already looked up where the station was and how I needed to walk up to the hotel. So when I walked out of the station, it felt I had been there already! Good God, technology!
The hotel was 3 star and so quite upscale as far as the amenities and the hotel associates were concerned. They would speak English, so it wasn't an issue for me. The guy helped me take my bags to the room and I thanked him "Gracias". To my surprise, I found the elevator to be really small, even at a upscale hotel - unlike the ones you see in the States where you can virtually sleep! The room was nice and cozy. I quickly freshened up and got ready in formals. I had to run to the conference venue where one of my friends / ex-colleague was presenting his paper at a workshop. I took the Metro again and used my Google Maps street view experience to find out the conference venue easily!
The conference venue was quite different from the locality my hotel was in. It looked new and the buildings you would see were new and quite urban, much like a regular office area in the States. I registered for the conference onsite and quickly moved on to the room where that Workshop was. Soon after had lunch and checked out some talks.
That day I was terribly jetlagged. Had to return to the hotel about 6 pm because I was too sleepy to even sit upright! No dinner, I came and dozed off.

Apr 21: This was in fact the real "free day" at the conference, because most of the talks were not of interest to me. So me and the friend who was presenting there went out after lunch at the conference to visit the Palacio Real (The royal palace of Spain). For the first time we saw the real face of the city! Madrid is adorned by lots of old buildings which have survived hundreds of years. However the Palace was a different story altogether. It was beautiful and elegant despite being old - something you would hardly see in the architecture in India.
Unfortunately the palace was closed on that day so we walked around some church, and took a nice walk at the Plaza Mayor which is a 17th century historic locality in Madrid. We caught some glimpses of Madrid life - narrow streets, old houses, canopy windows, a painter and the regular people.
On our way back, we were surprised and pleased to come across with the official welcome to the Indian President! Apparently Pratibha Patil was visiting Madrid at the same time as a National tour. So we were coincidentially a part of the entire royal welcome she got - horses well enamoured with jewels, nice vintage cars and what not! As a second coincidence we met one of my collaborators and her friend there as well!
We paused during our walk next to grab some coffee. Just to give you an idea, a small coffee which is half the size of the ones you get in Starbucks here, costed 2 euros. We sat and chatted nicely for a long time. We din't even realize it was two hours already!
I had an invitation from the Yahoo! party at the conference, so I had to rush there. Going there was nice fun. Though technically not a Yahoo! yet, but as a future Yahoo! person it was nice to interact with some of the people there. I tried the Yahootini - which is a vodka based Martini specially made on account of the Yahoo! party!
I returned back to the hotel at about 10 pm. Again I was very tired, but worked on my talk a little bit, which was scheduled a couple of days later.

Rest of my account would follow soon. Hope this left you excited! :)

I am Back

A 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 important of which being that the time to consolidate my PhD has arrived, rather astoundingly soon. Suddenly I am getting the feel time is running out, and I have so many things to do. And that life is short. And that the effort needed to fulfill the lone desire of my life - to bring smile to tomorrow's world, still looks like a far-fetched dream. But with the current state of affairs, I am certain I would make it there someday. :)

The moment when I am penning this blog, I have several things up on my schedule. Firstly, it is my Spain trip for attending the WWW 2009 conference. This is my first visit to the conference and I am glad to let you know that I would be a presenter there in the Rich Media track. Also planning on a very short trip to Paris. Some family is there, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up with an aspect of life I have almost forgotten about ever since I started PhD.

What follows next is a flurry of papers - my target this year has been to "consolidate" - finish up all the unfinished work and then gear towards a last final hammer on the final nail of PhD. I am glad, stressed and excited to be in this phase. More like I always wanted to be here!

Look forward to a very exciting summer as well! Let's see what interesting research is in store then! For the rest of the tidbits of my life, I would keep you all tuned. Possibly by blogging more frequently! :)

About Slumdog

Much 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 Boyle is not an Indian.

I appreciate constructive criticism. However often people forget to see the positive aspects of whatever they are criticizing. If Slumdog showed India in bad light, brought out the poverty our fellow people face, showed how little kids have to face "life" at such a tender age, isn't it true? Just living in metros, working in a software company making shit products for clients here, eating Rs 1000 dinners or sipping coffee from Barista or appreciating India's lunar mission doesn't change the reality in these slums. If a movie is made around that theme why is it bad?

Guys, please get rid of this Indian and not-Indian judgment. Why can't someone appreciate the movie as a piece of good Art? I mean what is the problem appreicating someone as a human-being, without bringing in distinctions based on color, race, community or country? At the end of the day, we are all human beings right? And if someone makes a movie vividly showing the reality faced a bunch of young kids in a slum in India, what is bad in it?

To this context, let me tell you this experience I just had while I was browsing Facebook. I usually don't click on the ads you get on your right hand side toolbar, because most of the times they are not useful to me. But today I saw an ad which led me to this link, giving the context of the Slumdog movie:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slumdog-Real-Stories-Real-Heroes/51507031558?aid=6002246647817

I was very intrigued to find such a manner to use the ads on social media sites. Moreover, I am glad the movie Slumdog is being used for a generous non-profit cause. This is for all of you who have been criticizing the movie - did DDLJ had the caliber to make such a societal impact? No, of course!

People, learn to appreciate others, respect their talent and their endeavors. That's the only way to making yourself a little better! Criticism doesn't have to be a fad. Appreciation and criticism need to go hand-in-hand. After all, we are all trying to build a better society together, isn't it?

Sometimes 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 thinking!

I am a newbie in this never-ending run for getting better, precisely called PhD - with an experience of about 3.5 years, where your sole job is to do "path-breaking research". I am yet to make a mark in the sands of time with my work, but I have learnt one thing clearly, that unless you can convince yourself why you are doing what you are doing, there's no point carrying over a hollow endeavor. You need to be as much convinced about your work as you can explain it to a stranger you meet in the subway one fine morning, and after listening to you, he or she would be ready to think that your work is going to be the technology which would redefine the world tomorrow!

Success I believe is bound to come that way; should you culture this passion. And also, PhD is not another degree. It is about living your life all over again, in a new light, and where you see your work getting inter-twined as a fine thread in the numerous strands coloring our daily world. Right from sipping a cup of coffee sitting at a cafe, to your turning off the night lamp before going to sleep, you should be able to reflect on your research problem in some manner or the other, in some nook and corner of your life.

Research is an alter-life, and PhD a road you tread to reach that goal called excellence. It transcends all boundaries; all you care for thereafter is the well-being of one and all, even the strangers you meet everyday in the subway...

PS: This post is precisely meant for those of the readers who think they might consider doing PhD at some point of time. Or for those of us who are new to this world called 'research'. Question your instincts before you take the leap. Bring out the creative artist in you even if you have an engineering background - trust me, all it takes to do good research is a innovative eager mind, and a desire to better yourself everyday!

I would like to conclude with a few lines from the title song of SRK's movie 'Chak de India':

Sometimes winning is everything...

As a researcher, this needs to be your sole aim in life; winning being bettering yourself every morning you wake up, and then using your better self to contribute something meaningful to the world. Because as they say, winning is not about competing with someone, but with your inner self...

Another 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 fundamental sciences, especially when I am thinking at a high level!

Have you ever heard of the popular one-liner taught at high school on Mechanics - it is easier to pull a cart than to push it? I found a very interesting correlation of this idea with the on-going research by Duncan Watts on refuting the Influentials' Hypothesis - that the idea that a few handful people trigger big sociological phenomenon is actually a myth.

Imagine a company interested in marketing their business idea / product over a community interested in technology-savvy products. Whom should they spend money on? The influentials (if they exist) who would "push" their idea / product; or a set of susceptibles (people prone to accepting new ideas) who would "pull" novel ideas / products from external sources?

The analogy looks very obvious with the Mechanics example of distribution of force while pulling / pushing a cart. A pull takes less effort (less expenses in the company context) to market a business idea :)

A very crazy correlation, but could not help thinking on the line of distribution of force in the context of high school Mechanics!

PS: More "pull" based models based on recent discussion with AK (Teddy): any web-based search (or any search thereof) is a "pull" model because the results are supplied based on queries from the user who is trying to pull in relevant information. A very challenging "push" model to cater to useful information to a user could be for example, automatically filtering RSS feeds (e.g. Google Reader) of users to "push" them only "interesting" information. A recent work from me on these similar lines of motivation has been done here. It has been accepted to be published in WWW 2009 to be held in Madrid, Spain in April.

... 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 Millionaire. Any such statement is an understatement of what he is capable of, and so it goes without saying how much is the depth and breadth of Rahman's fan-following ever since the 'Roja' times; and also the fact that I am certainly one of them; an apparent celebrity, but a very commonplace man whose achievements, hard-work, patriotism and dedication to work has always left me mesmerized. Coming from a very ordinary family the way he has been climbing the stairs of success by dint of sheer faith in himself makes me believe: nothing is impossible.

The world is not so bleak; there are still some people who believe in themselves, tiding over all odds, never being victims of the circumstances, and always cherishing the belief in themselves that they have a goal in mind that they need to reach; all the other reasons that come across on the way then lose significance. Honest, truthful and strongly determined people like Rahman practically prove this philosophy; and shower drizzles of hope everywhere, time and again.

No life is without a purpose. And when we know the purpose of our lives, there's no stopping. We can make the impossible *possible*.

I am fortunate I live at an age where there are folks like Rahman to keep sowing the seeds of hope that success is definite, should you want it from the bottom of your heart. The goals I have set in my life and big, large and heavy; but I am hopeful that as long as I see people like Rahman reaching their much coveted zenith, there's no reason I wouldn't be able to equate my dreams and goals to the life ahead, even if it costs my whole lifetime!

Munmun 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! Note, though not 'pro' before, I had a reasonable public exposure on the mere 132 photos I have out on my profile, with a current count of 9279 views. Photography is a hobby I have generated very late, like a couple of years back, say compared to my other creative pursuits like writing (11th standard, 1999) or cooking (B Tech Final Year, 2004-05) or traveling (B Tech 3rd Year, 2003-04). Like all of these creative pastimes, I found it inexplicably captivating. I want to nurture on this hobby more, possibly increase my exposure, hone my skills (I still consider myself an amateur-to-intermediate photographer) and thereby cherish my all-time love of Art.

The pic you see above is taken at the Monterrey Bay, in California during by new year visit to San Jose. It is a very pretty place, I am referring to 17 mile drive there. The drive is also very pleasant, beautiful and the Pacific shores are marvellously serene. Strongly recommended on your next pleasure trip!

The interesting thing about the pic is that no editing was done on the pic, not even cropping; fresh out of the camera memory card. The colors of the sky you see are the natural sunset colors. I also love the composition of the pic; the silhouetted foreground comprising the trees and little hills give a great sense of mystery to the pic.

Wait and watch. More of photography to come shortly!

My Christmas 2008

The 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 - because Santa had some gift or the other to give each year, and it used to remain a surprise. Things changed once I moved out for college in 2001, and things have been rapidly changing in life ever since.

Though single, I have accumulated a lot of stuff, as you can see above (this is just the kitchen packing!); which makes me think I am getting old; old because now I need so many things which I probably won't need four years back; for example, a toaster, a slow-cooker or a set of wine glasses. On that note, the packing also made me go back to the times of our move from one town / city to another in the 80s and the 90s, when Dad would get transferred to a new place. Though I vaguely remember all the packing phase, but I do recall it was a lot of hassles, a lot of pain and a lot of mess. And I never liked it - I hate chaos, I am perpetual lover of orderliness.

Nothing new as of now for this Christmas. I can almost recall all the Christmas since I came here and every time it had been quite boring, though very different everytime. The first time it was rather a worry and sickness phase, I was sick right before Christmas, and had to spend a night at the hospital emergency due to some 106 F fever. So winter 2005 wasn't so cool. The next time I was in India with parents having some fun times in Rajasthan. And last year I was on the east coast shivering in the snow :D.

Nevertheless this time, looking forward to the move in the morning and wrapping up the remaining packing. And also hoping some good fun in San Jose next week! I visit there for the new year!

Happy Holidays!

Tagged

Recently 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 come true, what would it be?
Turing Award, or a research accomplishment for which I can be remembered for the next three generations.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
No one really. The offenses I take are quite short-lived. I am a perpetual forgiver.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Buy a mansion kind of a house in the countryside, drive a Lamborghini and travel around the world. The rest I would use in doing some fruitful research which benefits the common man.

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Possibly. Though I believe that love always means being best friends; however, being best friends might always not indicate love.

6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
Cannot choose between the two. However I would say that loving someone is a big virtue, needs a big heart, a sense of forgiveness and a sense of understanding and respect.

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Forever. Though I might not wait, but love never dies, maybe the expectations from the person you love change with time.

8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Doesn't matter. Love is always about giving, irrespective of whether he or she is attached to someone else or not.

9. If you like to act with someone, who will it be? Your gf/bf or an actress/actor?
Shah Rukh Khan.

10. What turns you on ?
Intelligence, smartness, research and publications, and last but not the least, respect for women.

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?
A tenure-track faculty in a good research school in the US; with a hefty number of publications, teaching motivated and intelligent college kids.

12. What’s your greatest fear?
Getting detached from loved ones.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
A sweet and nice guy. A friend who has always been there all the time! :)

14. Do you hate people with alternate sexual orientation?
Of course not! It's all about "live and let live". Actually I am a big advocate of gay and lesbian liberation.

15. Are you living a life you always would have loved to live?
Yeah, I make things happen the way I wished them to. If not, I write a new end!

16. Would you give all in a relationship?
Yeah, whatever it takes, of course barring self-esteem and research.

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?
Sure, everyone deserves one chance. But only one though, afterwards I stop giving a shit for such people - why waste valuable time and effort on them?

19. What's your favorite color and why?
Black. It reflects composure, gravity and it's also versatile.

20. List people you would like to tag.
Anyone who likes it!

The "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 scenes from the movie on YouTube; and I found this quote, by the character Mr. Mckinley, very captivating.

Somehow I feel we can relate this quote to several things in our lives. It hints at those among us for whom the world is the way it is today - the pleasure, the luxury, the innovations and the myriad obvious things we take for granted in our lives. It is those of the third kind, the rebels, the unusuals, the ones who dare to go beyond the commonly perceived peripheries of life to make a difference to the world, in some positive sense.

It takes a lot of courage, self-confidence, faith, perseverence to be different; different not for the sake of it, but with a clear motive in mind. Variety, the diversity is the very spice of the human race. Those of us who think they are capable enough to stand out in the crowd; even if they know the road they are planning to tread is not all red and rosy; even if it would mean shunning several of the pleasures of life.

Life is not led in the days you live or the pennies you earn, but what you leave to the world when you leave. Given a choice, I would prefer being the above "third kind" and living a mere 10 more years, but having fulfilled the goals I have set for myself, for the world; than living another 40 more years to reach an unceremonious funeral.

So do I make more sense to those of who have been grilling me all this while for the kind of life I have always been leading? I don't know if fortunately or unfortunately I think I am not one of many of us, but I think this was needed in my life; or rather I feel my life itself was crafted this way, since the very beginning...

The Paradigm Shift of Today's Age

Several 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 humanities and the social sciences.

Paradigm shift - meaning a major change in the scientific process that governs a concept over several years, resulting in emergence of newer processes, techniques, methods and completely revolutionary ideas. And Kuhn bolsters this theory by using a quote from Max Plank:

"a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

However, if you want to use the term loosely, you can associate the term as and when to every other new idea or concept you encounter everyday. However to a researcher of today this term has a special meaning. And today I am going to write about my experience in an age of a major paradigm shift we are living through today.

A very concrete paradigm shift that has occurred in the past five to eight years in the decentralization of our society, societal relationships, social behaviors and social actions through the advent and popularization of the Web - redefining our very mode of communication, interaction and sharing information among us as well as between us and the (intelligent) machines / computers. The scale, profundity and periphery of this paradigm shift is way much more far-reaching I believe than any other shifts which had occurred in the early 20th century, e.g. Quantum mechanics, Darwin's theory of Natural Selection or the Turing machine. I believe it is so because this scientific revolution (or technological revolution if you say so) has an impact which is changing the very way we evolved into civilized humans - the notion of flocking into communities and forming societies. I and you can associate ourselves to this paradigm shift in a much inherently comprehensible manner than probably how our great grand parents or the grand parents did a hundred years back with E=mc^2!

As a matter of fact, think about the amount of time you spend on the blogosphere, Facebook, or Orkut. Or the times you get onto LinkedIn to find a good reference for a job. Or the times you look upto Friendster to find a date. Or the times the teenagers get onto MySpace to popularize their own new rock band. Or the times when the average Joe becomes the star with his videos on YouTube. Or the times you feel placated inside yourself looking at the 1073th comment on your Flickr photo. Or the times you love catching on to the world with Twitter. Or the times the election polls are dictated through the stories of Obama and McCain 'digged' on the Digg. The essence of the Web and its increasingly social nature has overcast our very little things of life!

We are living in an age of a major paradigm shift. A shift which is defininig our society. A shift which is illuding us with the notion of a 'shrinking world'. A shift which is thinning the membrane between the real and the virtual society...

And I am very fortunate to have got an opportunity to contribute in some little means to this paradigm shift - a shift with the potential to make many of Asimov's fictions come true to the upcoming generations! Cheers to science, to innovation and to the guards of it!

Are we Really Advancing as a Human Race?

In the pretext of spending some time with a friend who was visiting Tempe this weekend, I happened to spend considerable amount of time roaming around in the Borders (... books, music, cafe) in the evening. Killing time from one part of the store to another, more because they are closing soon and all books are having a 20% discount on its marked price, I checked out quite a few interesting books, ranging from Fiction, Thrillers, Horror, Politics and Literature. However couldn't find a book which completely made me feel, that I gotta buy it. Finally we went to this remote corner of the store, which I was earlier absolutely ignorant of, called the "Psychology" section.

Not that I was completely shocked at the collection in that aisle, but in retrospect after I came back home, I realized that it was so eerie the kind of books that sell well! To my surprise and to add to yours if you aren't aware of, more than 80% of the books were either about how to deal with a woman / man, how to have a better love life, how to tackle depression, how to be happier, or how to deal with rejections (from the opposite sex) in life. Though I completely agree these are issues almost everyone of us faces at some point of time or the other, however I don't quite understand why our lives have to be groomed in the manner as to spend our times of rest and relaxation in reading books which vaguely and faintly attempt to solve these grave issues, though ironically even remotely the authors have no idea of the vista of problems that might have led the readers to them!

I am not criticizing the writers for the kind of books they write - many of them are renowned psychologists. Nor am I saying that these issues aren't serious or big enough in life. However, I don't think they are larger than life.

What kind of a juncture we as a so-called intelligent race have led ourselves to, that we have to rely on other people's judgment to tackle our problems? I am not against the idea of books being a mentor to life and learning, however, how many times have the books about "understanding a man or a woman" helped you indeed?

It is very unfortunate that in a day when we have so much of knowledge and experiences to share, and given the inexpensive media-sharing ability available through the Internet, why we aren't able to act more mature in tackling problems in our lives which probably don't need enough attention; or problems which are to be solved with our conscience; or problems which should make us stronger in the future, than resorting as helpless folks to some psychologists? Why can't we take these issues as a challenge in life and proceed forward? Why do we have to search for the "key to happiness" in some long aisles in a bookstore down the pages of an obscure book, when in reality it's really just about us and our outlook?

Sometimes I wonder, is all the scientific and technological advancement we are working on really worth it? Worth in a world where people are losing their confidence in themselves; in their own happiness; in their ability to tide over failed relationships? Are we really advancing as a human race collectively?

Remembering The Newton Quote...

End of a chapter of life, of an official student; of being officially registered in courses in school. Yeah, Fall 2008 is my official end of coursework at Arizona State University, hopefully for the rest of my life too; unless my urge to do a second PhD in either Physics or Philosophy or Social Sciences overrides the practical considerations of life! That way, I want to believe in reincarnation, one life just isn't enough, there is so much to do in life!

Coming back to my reason of being placated, relaxed, placid, happy - a sense of finishing one segment of this long journey called PhD that I have chosen to embark upon. I have now all the time, all the focus, all the energy to work on things that interest me, that intrigue me, things that I love to do, things I believe I can work on and help make the world a little better place to live in - even if a small scale. Though not that I did not enjoy being a student; neither that the feel of the classroom bugged me ever. I absolutely love them; and if things go the way they have worked so far, I hope and plan to return to the same very classroom ambiance once again, and for the rest of my life; but on the other side of the platform, this time as an imparter of knowledge, of enkindling a few candles of enlightenment, of getting an opportunity to inspire another person tomorrow. Let's see what future has in store for me, and how I live up to the goals I have set for myself in life - even if at the moment they are sky-high.

The journey from a student to a full-fledged researcher wasn't abrupt or did not happen in one single day - it encompassed years of toil, self-learning, identifying self-motivation as well as miles of erroneous steps, decisions and failures. From the days of KG in Kailashahar, to prestigious Shishu Bihar till the 12th, a nationally renowned college during B Tech, and then finally in a completely different educational system here in ASU, I believe I have seen wide and profound variations in education, learning, success and career. Life has found its way through the meandering ups and downs of being a student, sometimes stuck in material success, or sometimes just making a point to a different folk of people about my actual potential. I have seen a lot of color in my life as a student. And today wherever I stand today, I thank my teachers, my contemporaries, my friends and those ill-wishers too for the sake of whom I have always bettered! Not the least at all, my parents - the greatest teachers of my life and two people who have always been with me through all the times of fruit and toil.

Nevertheless this is not the end. Though my celebration for this mere coursework end event was reasonably big, with a small get together at home and me cooking some sumptuous meals for some friends, yet I believe learning never ends. In the hands of mighty life and the destiny we write for ourselves, we would all continue to be her students, learning from small and big happenings, some successes and also some failures; some rosy paths and some throny labyrinthine roads. But isn't that what makes life so exciting - the sense of the unknown, the sense of incompleteness, the sense of just being a mere pebble in a desert as large as the Sahara?

I still remember those talks I would have with my Dad at the dinner table when he would tell me, quoting Sir Issac Newton,

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

It may be an official end to what we call "being a student" in a layman's langauge, I want to remain a perpetual student, as and when this marathon of PhD takes its little twists and turns...