Buzz is the new Facebook?

Is Buzz the new Faceebook?

I am not asking this in the sense that Google's Buzz is going to get a new market share overnight (unless they add some amazing new features). I am more surprised that they haven't gotten a bad rap for privacy as much as Facebook, yet.

I just uploaded some pictures in picasa and Buzz auto-updates it in my status! Now, I did upload them as a public album and thought I will worry about the privacy later - after all, I haven't uploaded any album in picasa for over a year and I doubt I have anyone checking my public albums on a daily basis. I clearly wasn't expecting a buzz update, especially considering I haven't used buzz in a long time (I wonder if I have used it at all to update my status).

While I was never quite happy about the auto-follow suggestions from Buzz, I didnt really worry about it since I was only "following" and didn't actively post stuff. But now looks like I may have to re-check my buzz settings and "tweak" it to set my desired privacy levels. Hope that works out to be easier than Facebook's.

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TED Talks

Although I have been a TED watcher for a long time, I have been watching a lot of them of late. I will probably end up linking the ones I enjoy here. That should compensate for the recent inactivity here!

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The Countdown

I am officially counting down my last days as the GA at the Engineering Library - the spring break week will be my last week of work. Not only will I run out of UGS credits this quarter (i.e. I won't be registered for full-time student credits anymore, which is a requirement for GA positions), but with the budget cuts a certainty for the next academic year it makes most sense for the library to hire a new GA before the college begins to reconsider the position's funding. I cannot imagine how the library would continue to function smoothly without a GA; I really hope the position is retained.

As a result, work is less fun these days since I end up reminding myself of the fast approaching spring break (no matter how hard I try not to!). Of course, the other parallel threads in my life don't help at all. The only consolation is that I expect to be done with my defense soon and also have a "semi-plan" of what I am going to be doing next. Having worked at the library for 2.5 years and having made so many connections here, I am sure it is going to be really difficult in the coming weeks. However, I am also kind of looking forward to the end of this phase. I hope this will be the last of the student worker positions for me.

To better things ahead... cheers!

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Workshop Woes

Taught another workshop today where I went overtime. I know that time management is definitely an area for me to improve upon. However today I strongly re-considered reducing the workshop contents. I am definitely greedy with the contents, trying very hard to squeeze in as much as possible within those limited 60- 90 minutes. I always face a time-crunch whenever the class gets interesting. No matter how hard I try to stick to just the relevant questions (and save the rest for later) I always get too many questions to ignore during an interesting session. Of course I also have to cater to the "takes-longer-to-get-it" attendees especially since I get a real diverse group for most workshops.

Actually this had been on my mind for a while. As a result, this quarter, I decided to re-order some of the contents. Although I still save the "best" for the end, I included a sneak peek of it at the very beginning so that even those who have to leave a little early would have an idea of what they are missing (like a movie where you see the ending at the very beginning; so even if you miss out on the last few minutes you can guess what you missed).

Anyways, after all the re-thinking, I finally decided to retain the "excess" contents - at least for the time being. What convinced me was going over my past feedback (again). If 69% say that the workshop duration was "just right" and 24% feel that it was "too short", then may be I am not doing a bad job by including those extra stuff. Also, considering over 93% rate the effectiveness of the sessions "Good / Excellent", I probably shouldn't try something drastic anyways.

I sometimes wish I had a full course to handle instead of these workshops. That would give me a lot more control and flexibility over the contents - I could always push stuff over for the next class if necessary! I also think it would be a nice change and offer fresh challenges. I wish the college were more open to allowing grad students to teach classes.

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Trusting Reviews

Looks like Internet is probably the best/easiest way to get back at any bad customer service you may have received. Of course there have been several instances with my recent favorite being "United breaks guitars". Just about everything (and everyone) from this Friday's new releases, to your college Professors are being rated, with the comments and results out in the public.

(I probably can't deny this point considering I keep track of movies I like and the books I read and "rate" them! Even though I do it more as a "bookkeeping" exercise I still end up with my "rants" on random stuff, which essentially are reviews.)

Getting back to the point I was trying to make, this is indeed a scary proposition for many (and I dont just mean the "big-companies"). Service providers must be extra careful about potential customer fallouts that may result in the next viral video (UA breaks guitars) or a negative mention in the next bestseller (French Roast in Freaknomics)! It is also important from the POV of a consumer - considering you rely on such reviews to make several decisions (and/or get influenced by them) how much "trust" can you actually place on the reviews / ratings? Consider that unhappy customers are more likely to write a negative review than happy customers are to  write a positive one. It may be easy to weed out odd/spurious reviews but add in factors such as "paid reviews" and biased reviewers. "Internet anonymity" has a lot to do with it too. There is a lot to ponder about one's (related) online habits --- both writing reviews as well as reading (and trusting) them.

May be I will ramble more on this sometime later.

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Funny Ha Ha

Question: Why should PhD students not use Macs and iPods?
Answer: Macs and iPods delay their graduation cuz "Apple a day keeps doctor away" ;)

A less geekier version:

Question: Which fruit should PhD students stay away from?
Answer: Apples! Apples delay their graduation cuz "apple a day keeps doctor away" ;)

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Product Pitch

I was talking about this idea with my uncle on my recent trip to Chicago.

GPS definitely has been a great innovation that has made travel easier and hassle-free. But when you are going in a big group with multiple vehicles where one is "following" another (for either directions or for some other reason) wouldn't it be cool to to be able to communicate with the the other car without having to call the other driver every now and then (probably just to tell him to switch lanes or to watch out for the next exit)? I guess an iphone app would be cool for this. But what would be cooler is to also have a simple external indicator, say a matching colored flag on top of both vehicles, so that the other vehicles on the road will also realize that these cars are together. That way, the other vehicles on the road can watch out for simultaneous identical actions of the two cars. Now that is something to think about.

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And the Oscar goes to...

I am extremely glad that the Oscars didn't throw any surprises this year. What a win for Slumdog! 8 of the possible 9 wins and especially winning the best picture without any acting nominations is a real feat. The movie may be overrated and may be not entirely worthy of the best picture crown but when Chicago and Crash have won in the recent past, Slumdog is definitely not the odd man out. And it completely deserved the wins for the background score, editing and direction and always was a damn good choice for the adapted screenplay, sound mixing and cinematography categories. Bravo Slumdog!

The most deserving winner of the night, for me, was probably A. R. Rahman- the man who deserves much more recognizion and respect than what has come his way. "Jai Ho" may have fetched him an oscar but it obviously is an award for every single one of his songs. What better way to celebrate than go "Masakali Masakali.."!

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God it’s killing me

It is sad that the Aussie Open timings don't work for you if you are in EST. I woke up at 5AM to catch the match, missed the first set completely and slept through part of the fourth and fifth sets. But the presentation was more entertaining than the match itself.

@Roger: In case you forgot, you ARE #2. And, that's not bad at all. But if you keep crying like this, no one will be intimidated by you. Not even Roddick.

Picture taken from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/sports/tennis/02tennis.html?hp

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Good at google

It may be partly due to the fact that I am very bad at coming up with one-liners but often a piece of dialogue from a book or a movie stays with me and I am left wondering how someone could come up with something that funny, or interesting (or in some cases, that dumb).

I have noticed that certain dialogues (probably) mean a lot more than what the writer intended. And sometimes they end up meaning the exact opposite. What immediately comes to my mind is Diane Keaton saying "I am good at google!" (in "Mad Money") to the person at the Employment Office who simply dismisses it with a oh-yeah-that-will-get-you-a-job stare; I guess the writer (and the entire crew) didn't realize that being "good at google" is actually a big deal.

I have seen several people struggle while searching for very simple things and they weren't computer illiterate or anything - they were just "bad at google". One classic example that instantly comes to my mind is my friend spending hours at google trying out several combinations of "two snakes winding around a knife logo" to get to caduceus (and I am really not making that up - my friend till date is called "paambu" aka snake for trying to bring down the google server with such search queries). Her wanting to use the caduceus as a medical logo (instead of the rod of Asclepius) was also funny but that would be a different rant.

Being a student and having to use several other databases and indexes apart from just Google, I guess it is pretty important that you have excellent "search-and-find" skills - which is probably why I retained this funny little piece from a rather forgettable movie.

Anyways, I will probably be posting some such interesting pieces of dialogues that I come across from now on, although for certain movies (like say Knocked up, or Juno, or even Jab We Met) it would probably end up being a pretty long post!

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Google Chrome

If my "The" roommate knows about it then it is safe to assume that you do too.

I just tried it (although not using it RIGHT NOW) and it seems pretty cool. Very bare maybe, but fast. And more than actual thing, I loved the Google Chrome comic-book (see: http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/) Although I would have loved more technical details, I have to agree that it wasn't a too dumbed down introduction. I felt that using only the colors from the Google Chrome browser for the comic strip was a nice touch.

After using GChrome I can only say that it is here to stay. Google's announcement may be premature but their product definitely seems to live up to the expectations. However, I somehow feel that THIS was the operating system that many (if not all) people thought Google would eventually come out with, to compete with Windows. I mean with Internet being ubiquitous already, and browsers being the most used software, is it too hard to imagine that soon, all computer activities will be done online? With the bulky IE still struggling to cope up with Firefox, Microsoft doesn't seem to have a ready answer to Google's next big attack so close to its hometurf. I could be wrong there, but I am definitely right in saying that interesting things are waiting to happen in the following days.

PS: What I loved most about Google Chrome (in the limited time that I have spent on it) is its taskmanager and the stats for nerds. Try it!

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Oohlympix

0-0-0 to 1-0-0 to 1-0-1 to now 2-0-1 or 1-1-1 or 1-0-2. That would be India's medal tally this year at Beijing and I am not complaining.

Thankfully, I have missed most of the Bindra mania that must have gone on and on back home with everyone from his 1st grade school teacher to the "dhobiwallas" and the local MLAs and MPs telling the world, how brilliant Bindra was as a child, and how they knew he would win the gold, and how their prayers and special poojas were the reason for his success. I guess the same will now be happening for Sushil and Vijender.

Hopefully more people will consider sports other than cricket seriously. May be the load of freebies given to Abhinav and those to be given to Sushil and Vijender will be tempting enough. I wonder if all the state governments had already decided after Bindra's gold that we will not be seeing any more medals this year. Now they are forced to give some to the other two athletes too!

Btw, the coverage at NBC is't too good either. It is as bad as yesterday's pizza - you still eat it but only think of how good it would be if it were fresh. Needless to say, the coverage has been predominantly for the US events, which I am okay with considering their participation up to finals in most events. The coverage of the Phelps' mania, however, has been nothing short of a soap opera with interviews and comments from anyone and everyone, and re-telecasts and re-re-telecasts of the same. I guess it is still alright that considering his tremendous feat. But what irked me most was the constant cribbing and complaining throughout the commentary (and the follow-up afterward) for the gymnastics events.

I agree that China's He Kexin doesn't look anywhere close to 16. But do you have to bring that up every time either she or an US athlete performs? If Nastia Liukin or Shawn Johnson (or team USA) lose the gold to China then it is because China cheated and the judges were unfair (they are anyways dumb since their countries don't even have gymnasts good enough to reach the finals). On the other hand, if the US does manage to win the gold then it is despite China's cheating and despite the unfair judging (by the dumb judges of course)! Will someone please ask the Béla Károlyi guy (and the NBC host too) to shut up. I can not believe this chap is a coach for he doesn't seem to have a single sportsmanship bone in his body. I can not understand his problem with the tie-breaking rule after the uneven bars finals. He speaks as if the rule was made up on the spot so that China would get the gold. If the result had been the other way round, I bet he would have said that Liukin deserved the gold since she performed better. This guy need to be tied up and forced to watch his own commentary and interviews repeatedly.

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Fed-exed

What a match! The best Wimbledon final in years and more importantly, a result that I liked! Not that I am big fan of Nadal but I felt it was time for the Federer Express to be shown the door, especially in the Grand Slam that matters.

Je suis tres heureux!

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Capitalism without mercy is evil !

This is what I think UC is doing wrt closing down of graduate and family housing.

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I wish

I wish people were a little more compassionate.

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Gloomy days ahead

Looks like the break might just break my plans.

Hope Not !!

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Randy Pausch

Happened to watch Pausch's "last" lecture ("Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams") and I should say I was deeply moved. It is not so difficult to recognize a good teacher when you see one, and you could tell with your eyes closed that he definitely is good (if not great).

Apart from his academic contributions to Computer Science and the "Alice" project which he claims is his "legacy", what really made me like him was how brave he was to do what he did.

I really hope he gets to have "fun" everyday.

I am not sure about others, but, good teachers live forever.

PS: You can watch his "last public lecture" here: http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/multimedia/randy-pausch-lecture.shtml

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Can't hardly wait

Going back home this week. (I mean "HOME").

Already, I have a long list of things to do and a longer list of people to meet. I wonder why I committed to working from there.

This time may not be as much fun though, as Ravi won't be there all the time. Now I need a "bakra" to scold, tease and trouble. (Any volunteers??). Minor consolations: Ill be there for "Avani Avittam" (and also for the college alumni meeting).

I hope things get calmer and cooler over here by the time I come back.

PS:
The movie I am most eager to watch in theatres there is "The Blue Umbrella". I saw "Maqbool" very recently and now Vishal is certainly among my favorite bollywood directors. Although I am pretty sure the movie will flop, I know it will be good.

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I want one ...

Knut.

The latest German celebrity reminds me a LOT of Jingli. See Knut in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZLKb_5S21E









Now, can someone fund my trip to the Berlin zoo? ;)

Want more Knut? Knut's blog is here: http://blog.rbb-online.de/roller/knut/
Unfortunately, its in German :(
The pictures and videos are awesome though.

On a entirely different note, I finally managed to finish the very boring "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". Now, 'll have to be doubly suspicious about books recommended by Ravi.

PS: Thanks a lot, S-S-Y!!

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Sanskrit and NLP

Although I wasn't intending to, one of my friend's friend claimed that Sanskrit was object oriented while I said that its regular grammar is what makes it more interesting for computer scientists. I ended up digging out quite some information on the topic.

It turns out, the whole interest in Sanskrit first started when a NASA researcher, Rick Briggs, published a paper "Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence" in the AI Magazine in 1985. The paper proposes that natural languages could also be used for knowledge representation. It details how Sanskrit is ideally suited for the job due to its regular, unambiguous grammar. You can read the entire contents of the paper here: http://www.gosai.com/science/sanskrit-nasa.html

The part about Sanskrit being OO is also probably true. Prof M A Lakshmi Thathachar (then Director of Academy of Sanskrit Research) says so in a '03 article in the GoodNewsIndia magazine. He says that:

"Words in Sanskrit are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives object oriented programming [OOP] today. For example, in English 'cow' is a just a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill down the word 'gau' --Sanskrit for 'cow'-- you will arrive at a broad class 'gam' which means 'to move. From these derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of 'movement'. All words have this OOP approach, except that defined classes in Sanskrit are so exhaustive that they cover the material and abstract --indeed cosmic-- experiences known to man. So in Sanskrit the connection is more than etymological."

Although not entirely convincing, it is quite interesting. The complete article can be read here:
http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/melkote-sanskrit-academy/

Another interesting aspect about Sanskrit seems to be that Panini formalized the entire Sanskrit's grammar in his own BNF-like form using meta-rules, transformations, and recursion with just 4000 sutras (rules). All this was way back in 400 - 200 B.C. while the well-known BNF was developed sometime in 1958-60. Details here: http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_syntax.htm

Looks like Sanskrit has the ideal grammar structures suited for machine representation of knowledge. However, it hasn't been shown yet that Sanskrit is object oriented.

Whatever be the case, I am just happy and proud that I got to learn not only Sanskrit (in my school days) but also about BNF and Machine Learning so that I can appreciate it all !!

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